CHAPTER 1
Loud country music vibrated windows and doors of the Holler Bar, disturbing the rural silence. The large cinder block tavern stood next to a gravel road in the small wooded Kentucky valley.
The last of the sun’s orange rays had just disappeared behind the horizon that Saturday, October 20, 2029, and the moon was nearly full. Crazy, uncertain things could soon happen, Game Warden Luke Ryder thought. Like how’s my life gonna change, if I’m out of a job?
Inside the jam-packed saloon, Ryder, a tall middle-aged man with black hair, sipped bourbon from a shot glass. His feet propped up on the brass rail near the floor, he sat on his usual stool at the rough wooden bar. A new backwoods tune pounded Ryder’s head while cigarette smoke burned his eyes.
The night was still young, around seven, Ryder reckoned. It was going to be chilly. The bourbon warmed his throat and chest and relaxed him. Too bad he’d have to bid booze goodbye forever, if he could actually do it. Alcohol was one of his only two good friends.
Though drinking would make him feel better for an hour or so, it had him in its clutches. He always drank too much. Then came the painful hangover. He told himself quitting was unlikely. He had to admit it. He was an alcoholic.
Yesterday afternoon Ryder’s boss, Captain Ralph Axton, had told him to stop showing up half crocked during working hours, or be fired.
Ryder stared into the bourbon that remained in his glass. The deafening music seemed to mute. His surroundings began to fade. His view of patrons along the crowded bar wavered as if he were looking at them through a layer of disturbed water. He gazed down and observed his arm automatically lift his glass toward his lips. Someone tapped his shoulder.
Ryder turned with his shot glass halfway to his mouth. County Sheriff Jim Pike stood there, smiling. Stocky with brown, curly hair, he stood five-foot-eleven. He was fit but had a modest beer belly. “How’s it going, Luke?”
“Could be better.”
Pike slid onto the bar stool next to Ryder. “What’s the matter, buddy?”
Ryder dipped his head toward the floor, then looked Pike in the eye. “I’m about to be out of a job.”
“How come?”
“My boozing, of course. Axton told me if I show up lit on the job again, I’m done.”
Pike rubbed his whiskery chin. “Yeah, but being a game warden, you’re out on your own most of the time, right?”
“Yeah, but Axton’s making me check in at his office every morning.”
“I thought you were thinking of getting into a program?”
“Yep, but I’m not sure it’ll make a difference.”
Pike signaled the bartender. “Joe, can I have a draft?”
“Comin’ up, partner.”
Pike turned to Ryder. “Long as I’ve known you, and that’s a spell, I don’t remember you giving up on anything. I think you can beat this.”
“There’s no way I can quit drinkin’ that fast. I need another job.”
“So, what do you think you’ll do?”
Ryder slowly shook his head. “I’m not sure.”
“Couple of years back you helped me with the Jenkins homicide. If it weren’t for you, Becket would have gotten away with it. I know you really wanted to be a public affairs officer at Kentucky Fish and Wildlife and had to settle for a game warden job. But honestly you got real talent for police work.”
“Yeah, but if I get fired for bein’ a drunk, who’s gonna hire me as a cop or even as a public affairs officer?”
Pike sipped his beer. “Don’t give up on yourself. You’re my best friend, so I know you won’t get mad if I tell you something. Sign up for a program now. Tell Axton about it.”
“Word has it Axton wants me gone yesterday.”
“Check in at the office sober. Drink early in the evening. Limit yourself to a beer or two.”
“Look, Jim, I won’t last long as a game warden. I’m an alcoholic.”
Pike paused, looking at the large Saturday night crowd. “Okay, I’ll risk giving you a chance. Except I’d want you to sign up with AA or something like it. Next time I get a big case, I’ll ask Axton to loan you to me for a few days. Is that okay with you?”
“Yes. Thanks, Jim, but what good would that do?”
“I’ll argue that I need another deputy — that you’re the best fit.”
“I appreciate the opportunity. I just hope I don’t disappoint you.”
“Soon as a good case comes up, I’ll be in touch with you and Axton.”
“But in this county there aren’t a whole hell of a lot of big cases, are there?”
Pike stood. “You’d be surprised.” He reached out and shook Ryder’s hand.
“I’m much obliged, Jim.”
“See you soon, Luke.”
Ryder felt sweaty and jumpy as he watched Pike leave. Then he ordered another bourbon and a beer.
CHAPTER 2
The next morning at dawn, an old farmer, also a part-time hunter splashed his off-road utility vehicle through the creek that crossed his land.
He stopped the electric Intimidator UTV at a secluded spot on his acreage that bordered woods. On a small patch of land he’d planted clover, corn, soybeans, and winter oats and wheat in a food plot to attract deer. His head filled with dreams of killing a big buck for a trophy and a doe or two for meat.
The ruddy sun was rising. A brisk wind rustled a row of dried cornstalks. This second day of Kentucky’s muzzle-loader hunting season had a crisp beginning.
Farmer Joe Ford felt lightheaded. His arm pained him. “Too much work,” he told himself. He often talked aloud when he worked the land alone. Though sixty-eight years old, he was as strong as a jackhammer.
He glanced at a skinny tree. His expensive trail camera was gone. It automatically took pictures of animals that visited the plot and sent the images to his cell phone via the Internet.
“Damn thieving Tom Bow!”
Sixteen-year-old Bow lived down the road on the next farm. He was troubled — killed cats and dogs, rumor had it. He even had set fire to an ancient shed his grandfather had built sixty years ago.
Recently, Ford had found a doe shot dead, out of season, on his back forty. He suspected Bow had killed the gentle creature. Ford had called Game Warden Luke Ryder, and told him that Tom Bow might have shot the deer. But Warden Ryder couldn’t prove a thing except the doe had been slain illegally.
Ford clenched his teeth. His heart raced. Despite the cold, his body flushed, and he was oddly sweaty. He smelled the clean air, and he felt a bit better. He plodded to the deer feeding station he’d set up. Mounted on a tall pole, the feeder included a big plastic bin that held three hundred pounds of seed. The gravity-fed grain slid into four troughs.
Because the bin was still half full of dried corn, he didn’t need to add more. As he turned away from the feeder and looked past his canvas hunter’s blind, a patch of blue caught his eye. The blue color was barely visible behind a bush, between its leaves. He walked past the blind and around the thicket. A man’s body lay sprawled on the ground. The old farmer’s eyes widened.
The swarthy corpse was face down. Was he Mexican? Ford shivered as his eyes focused on the large, gaping wound in the dead man’s back. Was it caused by a big lead ball? Blood had soaked the dirt around the body and had thickened. The deceased wore blue jeans and fancy cowboy boots. Barefoot tracks ran across the firm mud between smashed cornstalks.
The farmer’s fingers trembled. He tapped 911 on his cell phone’s key pad.
“911. What’s your emergency?”
Ford cleared his throat. “I found a dead man on my farm. I need the police out here right away.”
“You sure he’s dead?”
“Yeah. There’s a big hole in his back. It looks like he’s been shot. And lots of blood’s all over the ground.”
“What’s your name and exact location?”
“Joe Ford. My farm’s at the seven-mile marker on Kentucky Route 2910. I’m near the northeast corner of my place.”
“The county sheriff is on his way. Stay at the scene.”
CHAPTER 3
The irritating ring of Ryder’s cell phone woke him early Sunday morning. The noise jabbed his brain like a sharp knife. That added to a severe headache that pounded his skull like a prizefighter. Shut up, shut up, he silently said, the phrase echoing in his brain. Nauseous from drinking too much bourbon Saturday night, he snatched the device to stop its racket.
“Hello?” He ran his fingers through his black hair, dragging his nails across his scalp, hoping to reduce his pain.
“Warden Ryder?”
“Yeah?”
“This is Deputy George Mills at the County Sheriff’s Office. Sorry to call you so early, but there’s been a fatal shooting.”
“Uh-huh.” Ryder’s voice was slow and deep. The pain in his head grew more intense.
“Sheriff Jim Pike asked me to call you to see if you could join him at the scene. It happened at Joe Ford’s farm.”
“Yep, I know the place.” Ryder rubbed his mustache. A wave of nausea almost made his stomach erupt. “I’ll go soon as I get dressed.” Bitter bile spread through his mouth.
“I’ll let Sheriff Pike know you’re on the way. Goodbye.”
Ryder struggled to talk. “Bye.” His insides retched. He pushed the cell’s disconnect button. “Damn me.”
Ryder’s face turned white. He hustled to the toilet, fell to his knees, bent his thin, six-foot-two-inch, thirty-eight-year-old body over the pot, and dry heaved.
He roared, “Crap!” The cry punished his brain. After his agony subsided, he willed himself to stand.
He wondered if he’d been cursed with a bad combination of genes from his Italian-born mother and his Kentucky father, who both had liked to drink. His mother had died from an overdose of cocaine. His father had passed when his liver had given out.
Ryder rinsed his mouth with cold tap water, then splashed it across his face. After rubbing his head with a stale towel, he put on last night’s flannel shirt and pulled trousers over his briefs. When he lowered the toilet lid, it slipped and crashed down. Another surge of queasiness raced through his body. He sat on the seat and stayed still for thirty seconds. He yanked on his boots.
Staring into the bathroom mirror, he examined his unshaven face and black, unkempt hair. He shook his head. “I gotta stop this,” he mumbled. He shuffled into the bedroom and took his holstered Glock handgun from a hook on the wall.
As he left, he eased the apartment door shut, more to minimize his head pain than to be polite to neighbors. He had a half-hour drive to the Holler, but less if he stepped on it.
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