The Killing Hills E-Book

Chris Offutt

• Herausgeber: No Exit Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 244

Beschreibung

LONGLISTED FOR THE CWA GOLD DAGGER Mick Hardin, a combat veteran now working as an Army CID agent, is home on a leave that is almost done. His wife is about to give birth, but they aren't getting along. His sister, newly risen to sheriff, has just landed her first murder case, and local politicians are pushing for city police or the FBI to take the case. Are they convinced she can't handle it, or is there something else at work? She calls on Mick who, with his homicide investigation experience and familiarity with the terrain, is well-suited to staying under the radar. As he delves into the investigation, he dodges his commanding officer's increasingly urgent calls while attempting to head off further murders. And he needs to talk to his wife. The Killing Hills is a novel of betrayal - sexual, personal, within and between the clans that populate the hollers - and the way it so often shades into violence. Chris Offutt has delivered a dark, witty, and absolutely compelling novel of murder and honor, with an investigator-hero unlike any in fiction.

Leseprobe

Praise for The Killing Hills

‘Quite aside from being one of our finest storytellers, in his first crime novel Chris Offutt reminds us as always of how much we’ve pushed away from us – the natural world, kindness, community – and that the time will come when we reach again and it’s no longer there for the asking’ –James Sallis

‘The Killing Hills is as poignant and powerful as they come’ – CrimeReads (Most Anticipated Crime Books of 2021)

‘The lean prose elicits more than a hard-boiled style, and while the brisk yet gnarled atmosphere is reminiscent of Winter’s Bone, the dime-store crime novels of Jim Thompson, or even William Faulkner’s Sanctuary, Offutt brilliantly evokes the body and soul of his wounded hero. It adds up to a mesmerizing and nightmarish view of what lurks just over the hills. This is sure to be Offutt’s breakout’ – Publishers Weekly (starred review)

‘Offutt superbly blends classic country noir and character study, finding both great sadness and understated humor lurking in the give-and-take of his remarkable, dueling-banjos dialogue’ – Booklist (starred review)

‘A tense, thoroughly engaging read exposing a Kentucky hill country peppered with deceptive decency, deflecting manners and deadly trip wires all just waiting to snag the Army CID boots of Offutt’s formidable hero, Mick Hardin. A relentless story crafted with elegance, empathy and propulsive suspense’ – Stephen Mack Jones

‘Acclaimed Kentucky writer Offutt [delivers] another fine example of what might be called holler noir… A fast-paced, satisfying read. Rural crime fiction that kicks like a mule’ – Kirkus

‘Fast-paced, expertly written novel… Offutt has written a real mystery, a book that never wanes for even a moment. But it’s also a species of literary fiction, a complex book that explores the region and in all of its sadness and beauty, and it burns like a blazing coal fire from start to finish’ – Mystery Tribune

Praise for Chris Offutt

‘Offutt’s magic is that all of Tucker’s entanglements are dealt with in a manner so roundly humane you feel bathed in light, not plunged in the dark… This is the Chris Offutt book I’ve been waiting for – an achievement of spellbinding momentum and steadfast heart’ – New York Times Book Review on Country Dark

‘Offutt impressively inhabits this impoverished, fiercely private world without condescension or romance, fashioning a lean, atmospheric story that moves fluidly between the extremes of violence and love… Offutt is such a measured and unexcitable stylist that the story never wallows in the grotesque… [A] fine homage to a pocket of the country that’s as beautiful as it is prone to tragedy’ – Wall Street Journal on Country Dark

‘Chris Offutt’s work about mountain life earns high praise from other writers, and Country Dark, his return to fiction, is entirely welcome and a pleasure all around… Offutt writes so well, with such deep knowledge of the language and people, that Country Dark is likely to be read straight through, no resting places’ – Daniel Woodrell

‘Country Dark is a heart-wrenching story of a man who is caught between violence and his love. It is the story of a man who knows how to use violence to protect his love and dignity. This is one of those stay-up-all-night novels we all yearn for’ – Washington Book Review

‘Everything Chris Offutt writes is beautiful and brilliant, but My Father, the Pornographer is an astonishing house of mysteries, and his most moving book yet’ – Elizabeth McCracken

‘Chris Offutt owns one of the finest, surest prose styles around, ready and able to convey the hardest truth without flinching… [A] masterpiece’ – Michael Chabon on My Father, the Pornographer

‘A generous reminiscence… Offutt somehow manages to summon compassion for his father. That, ultimately, is what makes this memoir so unexpectedly moving’ –New York Times on My Father, the Pornographer

‘With My Father, the Pornographer, Chris imparts many rich and hard-won lessons to his lucky readers. This is a memoir that’s not only insightful but also funny, harrowing, and searingly honest’ – Curtis Sittenfeld

‘Offutt is a shot of Kentucky bourbon, a writer whose distillations of life are spare and pure and breathtaking’ – Chicago Tribune on No Heroes

‘Captivating… Offutt is a wonderful raconteur, sharp-eyed and self-effacingly funny’ – New York Times on No Heroes

‘Among the best short-story writers of his generation’ – Los Angeles Times on Out of the Woods

‘Lean and brilliant, Offutt’s obvious kin are Richard Ford, Tobias Wolff, and Ernest Hemingway. A magical book’–New York Times Book Review on Out of the Woods

‘Out of the Woods has the quiet majesty of classic American fiction. This is beautiful prose – as clear and pure and flowing as a mountain stream. Offutt packs more emotion, and more emotional truth, into a sentence than any American writer since Raymond Carver’ – Newsday

‘The new book confirms his mastery of short fiction about rural lives rendered with laconic intensity. Offutt is a mean hand at pithy sentences, hard-edged dialogue, and the lean portrayal of masculine vices like impulsive violence and compulsive restlessness… Out of the Woods is a collection to put on the shelf next to Raymond Carver and Richard Ford’ – Outside

‘Chris Offutt picks up where Daniel Boone left off… in search of new frontiers’ – New Yorker on The Same River Twice

‘Offutt the diarist has no models. The Same River Twice is a wild original… [displaying] the nihilistic passivity of a graduate student with the physical robustness of a convict’ –St Petersburg Times

‘From the hills and tough as oak, in his best stories Offutt bring to mind D. H. Lawrence, blood-driven and holy. His people have an heroic dignity’ – James Salter on Kentucky Straight

‘Powerful… Offutt, who grew up in the Kentucky Appalachians, offers taut stories filled with strained relationships and unarticulated desires’ – Publishers Weekly on Kentucky Straight

‘These are wild, tough, magical stories, often as shocking as real life, and every one a heartbreaker. Chris Offutt plainly loves the English language and knows how to make it do wondrous things’ – Josephine Humphreys on Kentucky Straight

For Jane Offutt Burns

The moonlight falls the softest in Kentucky

The summer days come oft’est in Kentucky

Friendship is the strongest

Love’s light grows the longest

Yet wrong is always wrongest in Kentucky

– James Hilary Mulligan

Chapter One

The old man walked the hill with a long stick, pushing aside mayapple and horseweed, seeking ginseng. It grew low to the earth obscured by the undergrowth. Last year he’d found several plants in this vicinity, an ideal habitat due to slopes that faced east, away from the hard sun of afternoon. The remnants of a rotting elm lay nearby, another good sign. He stopped to catch his breath. He was eighty-one years old, the oldest man in the community, the only old man he knew.

The ground was damp with dew, and tendrils of mist laced the upper branches. The rise and fall of morning birds filled the air. There were mostly hardwoods in here, trees he liked for their size and bounty of nuts. Cut and split, two trees were enough to keep a family warm all winter. He moved upslope from the bottom of a narrow holler covered in ferns. Strapped to his belt was a pouch that contained ginseng plants with forked roots. One was large and sprouted three distinct prongs, each worth a pretty penny. He’d found several smaller plants but left them unbothered in the earth. They needed another year or two to grow unless a rival found them first. He carried a .38 snub-nose pistol. The accuracy fell away drastically after a few yards but it made one heck of a noise, and he kept it visible in his belt. The sight was usually enough to frighten any lowlife ginseng-poacher away.

He climbed to a narrow ridge, pushed aside a clump of horseweed, and saw a cluster of bright red berries. A quick jolt ran through him, the joyous sense of discovery he’d first experienced as a boy hunting ginseng with his brothers. He crouched and dug gently to protect the delicate root in case it was too small for harvest, which it was. Disappointed, he memorized the precise location for next year, noting the landmarks – a hundred-year-old oak and a rock cliff with a velvety moss, green and rusty red. Something caught his vision, a color or a shape that shouldn’t have been there. He stopped moving and sniffed the air. It wasn’t motion, which ruled out a snake. It might have been light glinting off an old shell casing or a beer can. Either one was no good – it meant someone else had been up this isolated holler.

Curious and unafraid, he moved through the woods, hunched over slightly, sweeping his vision back and forth as if looking for game sign. The land appeared undisturbed. He stood upright to stretch his back and saw a woman lying in an ungainly fashion, her body against a tree, head lolling downhill, face tilted away from him. She wore a tasteful dress. Her legs were exposed and one shoe was missing from her foot. The lack of underpants made him doubt an accidental fall. He moved closer and recognized her features well enough to know her family name.

He returned to the ginseng plant and knelt in the loam. He pierced the dirt with his old army knife and rocked the blade until he could lift the young plant free. Ginseng didn’t transplant well but it was better than leaving it here to get trampled by all the people who’d arrive to remove the body. It was a pretty place to die.

Chapter Two

Mick Hardin awoke in sections, aware of each body part separate from the rest as if he’d been dismantled. He lay on his arm, dull and tingling from hours of pressure against the earth. He shifted his legs to make sure they worked, then allowed his mind to drift away. A few birds had begun their chorus in the glow of dawn. At least it hadn’t been a bad dream that woke him. Just birds with nothing to do yet.

Later he awakened again, aware of a terrible thirst. The sun had risen high enough to clear the tree line and hurt his eyes. The effort to roll over required a strength that eluded him. He was outside, had slept in the woods, with any luck not too far from his grandfather’s cabin. He pushed himself to a sitting position and groaned at the fierce pain in his skull. His face felt tight as if stretched over a rack. Beside him, three rocks formed a small firepit beside two empty bottles of whiskey. Better the woods than town, he told himself. Better the hills than the desert. Better clay dirt than sand.

He walked slowly to a cistern at the corner of the old split-log cabin and brushed aside a skim of dead insects from the surface of the water. Cupping his hands, he drank from it, the cold liquid numbing his mouth. He’d read about a scientist who talked to water then froze it and examined the crystals, which changed depending on what was said. Kind words uttered in a gentle tone made for prettier crystals. The idea sounded far-fetched but maybe it was true. Humans were about sixty percent water and Mick figured it couldn’t hurt to try. Nothing could hurt much worse than his head anyhow. He plunged his head into the water and talked.

When he needed to breathe, he lifted his head to gulp the air, then shoved his head back in the barrel and spoke. He’d spent the evening telling himself terrible stories about his past, his present, and his future – a circular system that confirmed his wretched sense of self, requiring alcohol for escape, which fueled further rumination. Now he struggled to find generous things to say about himself. As he spoke, bubbles rose to the surface and he tasted dirt.

The third time Mick came up for air, he saw a vehicle at the edge of his vision and assumed it was something he’d imagined. He wiped water from his eyes. The big car was still there, and worse, there appeared to be a human coming toward him. Worst of all, it was his sister wearing her official sheriff’s uniform. To top it off, she was laughing.

‘What do you want?’ he said.

‘Oh,’ Linda said, ‘checking on your hygiene in general. Looks like you’re bathing regular. Taking a bug bath, that’s what Papaw called it. How you doing?’

‘Feel like I been shot at and missed, shit at and hit.’

‘At least your head is clean.’

Mick nodded, the movement sending stabs of pain along his body. His head felt like the top of a drum tightened bolt-by-bolt until any pressure might rip his flesh. He’d overdone it, all right.

‘Coffee,’ he said. ‘Want some?’

He went in the house, water streaming along his torso and light blue chambray workshirt. He filled a blackened four-cup espresso pot with grounds and set it on a camp stove – a propane tank with stabilizing fins – and ignited the flame. Linda inspected a tin pitcher of water for bugs.

‘Where’s this from?’ she said.

‘Papaw’s well.’

‘How long you aiming to live out here?’

‘I need to change clothes.’

Linda nodded once, a single curt movement of her head she used with most men. Everyone had their little ways, their routines. Mick’s were odd, a product of living with their grandfather in this cabin as a child followed by fourteen years in the army. He’d been a paratrooper then joined the Criminal Investigation Division, specializing in homicide.

Linda moved languidly about the main room as if the space itself rendered time obsolete and slowed her motion. A homemade shelf bolted to a wall held the treasures of Mick’s childhood – a trilobite, the striped feather of a barred owl, a mummified bullfrog he’d found in a shallow cave. A rock with three horizontal sections that resembled half a hamburger. Her grandfather had tucked blankets around her and pretended to take a bite – a moonlight ration, he called it. Linda grinned at the memory.

She went outside and followed a path to a wooden footbridge that crossed the creek to the next hillside. As children, she and Mick had built elaborate structures from sticks and leaves beside the creek, imagining it as a river town with a mill, rich families, wide streets, a hotel, and a movie house. Then they sat on the bridge and destroyed everything from above with rocks, delighting at a direct hit. The game was among her favorite memories but as she sat there now she realized that it marked a distinct difference between Mick and her. She’d liked creating the town while her brother had enjoyed its destruction.

He joined her with coffee and they sat with their legs dangling off the edge of the bridge. As usual, he waited for her to speak, aware that it wouldn’t be long.

‘That creek looked further away when we were kids,’ she said.

‘We probably added another two feet of creek bed with the rocks we threw.’

‘I was just thinking about that.’

‘I know.’

‘So you can read my mind?’ she said.

‘Nothing else to do but sit out here and remember.’

‘You like the past that much?’

‘Not lately,’ he said.

‘What is this, some PTSD thing?’

‘Right now it’s a bad hangover.’

‘You think you’ve got PTSD?’ she said.

‘Probably. Dad did. Papaw, too.’ He blew on his coffee and took a sip. ‘Don’t worry, I don’t exhibit any sign of PTSD.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like denial for starts.’

She glanced at him, a sidelong shot of eyeball, trying to be circumspect but knowing he didn’t miss a thing, not one damn thing, even hungover. His preternatural alertness made life hard for everyone, especially himself. She decided not to bring up his pregnant wife.

‘You thinking about Peggy?’ he said.

‘How the hell do you know that?’

‘It’s logical is all. But she ain’t why you’re here, is it?’

‘No, it’s not. Since you’re so good at knowing things, you tell me why I’m visiting you.’

‘That’s easy, Sis. You came up here in uniform, driving the county vehicle, then waited around. You want something.’

‘Damn it.’

Mick nodded, amused. He loved his sister, particularly her foul language. She’d been the first girl in the county to play Little League baseball, the first woman deputy, now she was the sheriff.

‘I’ve got a dead body,’ she said.

‘Bury it.’

‘They want me out.’

‘Who wants you out of what?’

‘All the big shots in town,’ she said. ‘The mayor wants the Rocksalt police to take over so he can get credit at election time. The County Judge said he didn’t like anybody in our family going back fifty years. He wants the State Police to investigate. It’s jurisdictional bullshit. Pisses me off. The real reason is they don’t like a woman being sheriff.’

‘So what. They don’t have authority over you.’

‘No, but they answer to Murvil Knox, a big coal operator. He’s slippery as chopped watermelon. Funds both sides in every election so he’s owed no matter who wins. I had the awfullest meeting with them first thing this morning. About like three roosters in fancy clothes. I hate how men act around each other.’

‘To hell with them.’

They stared at the creek. A breeze rustled the poplar, its leaves the size of hands turning their palms to the wind. ‘This kind of murder,’ she said. ‘It never happened here before.’

‘What do you mean, Sis?’

‘There never was a body in Eldridge County that most folks didn’t already know who did it. Usually a neighbor, a family, or drugs. Maybe two drunks who argued over a dog. This is different. Everybody liked her. She lived clean, didn’t have enemies, and didn’t get mixed up with bad people.’

‘Odds are a man did it.’

‘I agree. You’re a homicide investigator. You know the hills better than I do. People will talk to you.’

‘You asking for help?’

‘Hell, no,’ she said.

He nodded, grinning.

‘What have you got?’ he said.

‘A forty-three-year-old widow up on Choctaw Ridge. Off the fire road past Clack Mountain. Veronica Johnson, went by Nonnie. She was a Turner before she got married. Her husband died. Nonnie and her boy moved in with her sister-in-law. They both married Johnsons who died young.’

‘Go talk to them. Find out what the son knows.’

‘Done did. He’s a wreck. Somebody took his mom up in the woods and threw her over the hill like trash.’

‘When did it happen?’

‘Three days ago,’ she said.

‘It rained yesterday and half the night. There’s nothing to see at the scene. Rain washed all the tracks away. That’s why I was outside.’

‘You like drinking whiskey in the rain and sleeping in it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I couldn’t do it in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Syria. No whiskey. No rain.’

Linda walked to her car and returned carrying a manila envelope stamped with the official insignia of the county. Mick nodded, a habit she recognized from their grandfather. With the two of them in the same room – Papaw and Mick – they nodded more than those little bobble-headed dogs that people put in the back window of their cars. She hated being stuck at a red light behind one.

Linda handed him the envelope.

‘Crime scene photos,’ she said.

‘Who found the body?’

‘Mr Tucker. You know him.’

‘Grade school janitor? I figured he was dead.’

‘He’s getting up there. His wife is sick. Taking care of her is what keeps him going.’

Mick studied the photographs one by one, staring at each for a long time. After going through them, he set aside those of the body and gathered the photos from the dirt road. He spread them out on the mossy bridge and began moving them around as if seeking a sequence. Linda liked this side of him, the concentration he brought to bear, an intensity of focus. She’d seen it in pool players, bow hunters, and computer coders.

‘What can you tell me?’ she said.

When he spoke, his voice held a different tone, slower and at a remove, as if talking through glass.

‘There’s seven different sets of tracks. First car was his and the others drove over them. Who was up there?’

‘Me. A deputy. Ambulance. County medical examiner. A Fish and Wildlife guy. A neighbor man who came to see what the fuss was.’

‘Who?’

‘Fuckin’ Barney.’

‘You talk to him?’

‘No, I’ve been in court all week. A real mess. Couple of meth-heads had their granny living in a shed while they cooked in her house. I ain’t had time to track down Fuckin’ Barney yet. He’s supposed to be living with his mother. I called her and she didn’t answer.’

‘I’ll go see her.’

‘I appreciate it,’ she said.

‘I’m not doing it for you.’

‘Then who? Nonnie?’

‘No, for the guy who killed her.’

‘I don’t get it,’ she said.

‘You know what Nonnie’s family will do. Some old boy will take a shot at the killer, then get locked up.’

‘You’re trying to keep a stranger out of prison?’

He looked at the creek bed below, watching a katydid nibble a blade of grass. His voice took on the distant tone again, like a church bell ringing down a long holler.

‘I don’t want nobody else to get killed,’ he said. ‘I had enough of it overseas. If I can stop it, I will.’

As well as she knew her brother, Linda had no idea what he’d gone through in the desert. Like the other men in their family, he never discussed his experiences at war.

Mick stood and offered her a hand. She ignored it and they walked back to the cabin. Virginia creeper covered the western wall, the vines thick as a gun barrel.

‘That can’t be good for the wood,’ she said.

‘It’s worse around back.’

‘Do me a favor,’ she said. ‘Keep your cell phone on you for once. I called you four times.’

He nodded. She watched him climb the rough-hewn steps to the porch, suppressing the urge to ask about his marriage. No sense aggravating him after he’d agreed to help.

Chapter Three

Mick ate four Advils, drank a quart of water, and went back outside, pushing the warped screen door to make sure it latched. Years of repairs gave it the appearance of an old quilt, patched by twine, spare wire, and a denim pants pocket. Mick’s great-grandfather had built the four-room cabin by hand, solid construction with corners that still held true, the walls plumb, a floor as level as water. He’d picked this place due solely to the rough terrain. The hills were too steep and the hollers too narrow to log the woods. When Mick was nine his father died and Mick moved into the cabin with his grandfather, who was caring for his own elderly father. Linda stayed in town with their mother. The two old men taught Mick all they knew about the woods, wisdom that ran back to the Great Depression.

He found his cell phone in the truck. Four messages from his sister. No calls from his wife. Three missed calls from a number he recognized as an army base in Germany. His headache had subsided to a dull throb and he wanted to go to bed. Instead he headed toward Choctaw Ridge in his grandfather’s old pickup, a 1963 stepside Chevrolet. If he felt good enough later, he’d go visit his wife.

Mick drove to the nearest gas station, a family business twelve miles away. Mick had known the Haneys all his life. A grandson ran it now, or maybe a great-grandson – each generation looked the same: stout through the torso with a set of shoulders like a fireplace mantle, powerful arms, and sturdy legs. Their heads were more rounded than elongated. All had ruddy expressions and the same thatch of unruly hair that started out red, faded early to gray and finally white. As a child Mick knew the patriarch, a man with snow-colored hair who went by Red. He parked in a concrete lot below the hand-painted sign that said HANEY’S BIBLE AND TIRE.

The youngest version approached the vehicle.

‘I know that truck,’ he said. ‘Hardin, ain’t it?’

‘Yep, I’m Mick. Which one are you?’

‘Joe.’

‘Big Joe or Little Joe?’

‘Neither one. They’re my cousins. They call me Little Big Joe. You wanting tires, gas, or a Bible? They’ll every one get you where you need to be.’

‘Top it off with regular. I got to go up a muddy hill. Got any junk laying around I can weigh the back end down with?’

‘Got a Ford engine block weighs five hundred pounds.’

‘How much you take for it?’

‘What’ll you give?’

Little Big Joe let a sly grin wander his lips as he unscrewed the gas cap and inserted the nozzle. Mick nodded. He’d missed the swapping culture of the hills. Prolonged negotiations provided men an opportunity to display their knowledge without being show-offs. His grandfather could take a cheap pocketknife to a swap-meet and come home with livestock.

‘I’ll give you thirty dollars,’ Mick said.

Little Big Joe squinted as if in pain, letting the silence build until Mick offered more. Instead Mick cleared dead leaves and twigs from the tiny trough that held the windshield wipers, then polished the side mirror with his shirttail.

‘Engine block is heavy enough,’ Little Big Joe said. ‘Won’t shift around in the bed.’

‘Ort to work.’

‘Run you a hundred and twenty-five for it.’

‘Can’t do it,’ Mick said.

‘For fifty, I got axles and a busted woodstove. It’s iron. But you’ll have to get them on the truck.’

‘How about seventy-five and you help me load the engine block.’

Little Big Joe finished filling the gas tank. ‘Hundred,’ he said.

‘Ninety.’

‘All right, but don’t go around telling folks you skinned me out of it.’

‘I won’t.’

Little Big Joe’s quick agreement on price meant he’d gotten the better of the deal, a fact confirmed by his request that Mick keep it to himself. He was protecting Mick from public indignity after taking advantage of him. It was the hill way. People looked out for each other even during conflict.

Thirty minutes later Mick left, the leaf shocks nearly flat from the weight. He’d sweated through his clothes while loading the engine and felt a little better. Acceleration was slow but he was confident the truck would make it up the muddy fire road. To get to Choctaw, he drove nearly to town before looping back along Lick Fork Creek. As he drove he thought about his sister. She was a Hardin, stubborn and tough, and Mick knew that the oblique request for help cost her some pride. He’d do what he could. Linda had begun her career in law enforcement as dispatcher for the town of Rocksalt’s police force. Five years later the deputy sheriff was accused of sexually harrassing citizens. He resigned and Linda was offered the job because it would make the politicians look good. Four months ago the sheriff died of a massive stroke while fishing the Licking River and Linda was promoted.

Mick left the blacktop for a single-lane dirt road that rose and dipped with the land. Glade fern swayed near mudholes in the low parts while the higher sections held chickweed and groundcherry. The fire road was easy to miss and he slowed his pace, looking for the brief absence of trees, not the beginning of a road – one of his grandfather’s lessons. Searching interfered with the ability to find. Don’t hunt for mushrooms, look for where they grow. At night don’t look for an animal trail, just walk where the trees aren’t. See shapes and colors, not the thing itself.

This method of thinking served Mick well in CID. He investigated the same way his grandfather worked the woods – open to all of it, seeing what was there, and using the information to further his comprehension. The nuts of hardwood trees drew squirrels that were vulnerable to snakes coiled amid the undergrowth. Before gathering walnuts, his grandfather raked through the brush with a long stick to frighten away the snakes. Most bites were on the hand or foot. It was the same with people, Papaw had said. Mick didn’t understand this until clearing rooms in Iraq and three comrades were shot in the hand by the enemy.

At the bottom of the fire road he inspected the deep ruts streaming with clay mud. If he was careful he could straddle the furrows and ascend the steep slope. The steering was imprecise from sliding tires but the weight of the Ford engine in the bed provided sufficient traction. At the top he stopped well back from the mess of tire tracks turned into mudholes from rain.