[center][b]The Pickett County War: Part I[/b][/center] [b]Pickett County, South Carolina[/b] Scott Andrews rolled through the deserted streets of Pickett in his unmarked car. Scott had left the sheriff's department a little past three after shift change came in for relief. It'd been a quiet shift during a quiet day. Hell even the night was quiet, but that was normal for the small town this time of night. Even the Grab N' Go, open twenty-four hours a day, only had just the cashier's lone car in its parking lot. He followed the highway through the heart of town, pulling off and cruising through Nelson. He saw cars rolling through the neighborhood's narrow streets, people standing on porches and in frontyards still partying on a Saturday night. Of course they were still up in the Jungle. Their kind seemed to be nocturnal. There was a bit of a stiffening among the black citizens of Pickett when they made Scott's car as a cop. He smiled in the dark. Goddamn right. You may not respect much, but you will fucking respect that badge. Scott pulled into the gravel parking lot of Club 65 at fifteen minutes after three. He saw Wendell and Lisa's cars in the parking lot along with that familiar old red pick-up truck. Club 65 closed at midnight on Saturdays because of the sabbath. That day still had power over the people here even if they were a lawless and godless sort. Pickett may be Pickett, but the South was still the South. And in the South, Sunday was sacred. He spat tobacco juice on the ground as he got out and sauntered towards the club. It wasn't much to look at. A concrete building with a plain roof and a cheap sign that announced what it was. He walked through the door into the bar. Wendell stood behind the bar, cleaning glasses while Lisa wiped down tables and put overturned chairs on them. The one table she did not touch was the one Billy sat at. The sight of Billy made Scott smile. He wore jeans and a flannel shirt with workboots. A pair of reading glasses rested on a crooked nose that had been broken a long time ago. In his lap was a biography on Napoleon. He was on the heavy side and had snowy white hair. To anyone not in the know, Billy Brown looked like just another Southern cracker. With the reading glasses he looked like an old Southern cracker. "Take a seat," Billy said with a broad smile. Scott gave Wendell and Lisa polite nods before he sat across the table from Billy. Billy closed his book and placed it on the table. He carefully took his reading glasses off and folded them before tucking them into a breast pocket on his shirt. "Just getting to the good part," Billy said with a soft chuckle. "Peace between Napoleon and Alexander I has broken down and Napoleon is marching into Russia." "Oh, yeah?" John asked to be polite. "Yep." The soft smile from Billy started to fade away. He leaned back in his chair and considered Scott for a moment. His small, brown eyes had a way to cut through the bullshit and get to the heart of a man's soul. He had an eye for human weakness that Scott had only seen matched by cops in the interrogation room. "That guy I told you to pop last week. That traffic stop bullshit." Scott raised an eyebrow at that. While on the outside he looked curious, inside he was a bundle of nerves. He'd botched the thing up to hell and back. It was supposed to be simple. He'd been following the guy all day and he was moving in and... fucking Sherry had come up on him as backup before he had a chance to-- "Yeah," Scott said softly. "I remember." "I know you did," Billy said with his face of stone. "You are goddamn right you remember fucking up. This guy, this Howard Beggs guy is in the fucking wind and I can't find no hide nor hair of 'em. So, Major, I want you to use all the power of your sheriff's department to find him. Find him and take care of him." Billy didn't say what he meant. He did not have to. He also didn't mention pay. Scott also knew why. He still owed Billy for the last job. The old man laughed again, his harsh mood seemingly gone as quickly as it had arrived. "I been reading history for nearly fifty years, Scott. You know what I find the most interesting? Kings, emperors, monarchs. What is it that makes an entire country of people fear one man, believe that that one man has been declared by God to be the ruler of these people? What keeps them in line?" Billy's hard little eyes cut through Scott again. Unblinking and unyielding. "Fear. One man can make an entire population fear him just by reputation alone. It's a hell of a thing. It's so powerful that the best rulers, they don't even need to make a threat. The implications are more than enough." Scott swallowed hard as he and Billy sat in silence. Wendell and Lisa had stopped their cleaning up and instead looked on. And Scott knew the looks on their faces, that look of being unsure of what to say and afraid to say something less you drew the old man's ire, he knew he had to have that look on his face. "Have a good night, Scott," Billy said warmly. "And good luck out there." [hr] At five in the morning they came for John. A loud pounding from somewhere across the trailer woke John up from his slumber. He looked around his small bedroom for its source. Another round of pounding. John reached down underneath his mattress and pulled a .40 Smith & Wesson from between the mattress and the box spring. He got out of bed clad in only his boxers and shuffled out of the bedroom. “Open up,” a voice said from outside. “Pickett County Sheriff’s!” John grunted. Fucking cops. They always pulled chicken shit like this, thinking they were clever to after you this late at night. He tucked the gun into a cabinet in his kitchenette before padding through the small trailer towards the front door. Clint Land stood on the porch with a pump-action shotgun in his hands. Behind him was sheriff Gene Parker in a suit and tie and chewing a toothpick and looking as smug as hell. His fat, ruddy face was coronary red even in the dim porch lighting. Somewhere nearby a dog barked in the night. Land said, “Against the wall, shirtbird. Spread ‘em.” John quietly complied. He leaned against the sheet metal of the trailer’s exterior and let Land pat him down. Fucking fool, trying to pat down a naked man. But that was Land in a nutshell. He used to be a big deal back when he was in school and thought that meant he could do anything. He left home for a few years and saw the world for what it was and came running back home with his tail between his legs. His pride wounded, he took the authority that came with a badge and gun and tried to overcompensate for the fact that he would never be anything but a hasbeen. “He’s clean.” “Goddamn right,” said John. "Frisking a man in his boxers, the fuck is wrong with you?" Parker spat. “Clint, go sit in the car while John and I talk.” Land slowly acknowledge and went towards the sheriff's car that had boxed in John's beat up pickup truck. Parker wiped sweat from his head. Even though it was still the middle of the night it was still plenty humid enough to make a man work up a sweat simply by just being outside. "For the past month I've had Danny and Mark looking into you. They've tailed you to that property out on Trask Road where you're growing that pot. They took photos of you coming and going, photos of what's on the land, and got you meeting with Jeff Silvers and at least two more known drug dealers from Pickett, and one from down around Columbia. Intercounty trafficking sounds like a SLED crime to me." "So why ain't I already in county lock-up," John spat. "If you're gonna arrest me arrest me, you cocksucker." Parker laughed. He grinned. He moved quickly, far quicker than John thought a man his size could move. He sucker punched John hard in the chest. He fell to the ground and gasped for breath. Parker patiently waited for him to recover. A few minutes later, John was back on his feet and rubbing his sore chest. "You and I should meet up when you don't have a man with a shotgun watching your back." "I'd still wipe the floor with you, son," said Parker. "You may be a Norman, but you ain't nothing like your daddy." John was about to hurl off another insult when Parker held a hand up. The sheriff reached into his suit coat and brought something out. It was a mugshot of a man with long, stringy blond hair that was either dirty blonde hair, or blonde with actual dirt in it. John couldn't tell. The man also had a blond goatee. His face, which was bony and looked emaciated, was marked by sores on the cheeks and around the mouth. His blue eyes were set back in the sockets and looked out at the camera with a wide stare that bordered on insane. Accompanying the photo was a three-page arrest record with Pickett County Sheriff's Department letterhead on it. "Tweaker," John said with a rasp. "Don't fucking know who he is." "Howard Beggs," Parker grunted. "He got run in last week for possession of meth. Made bail and then disappeared off the face of the earth. Find him and call me, I'll get some of my deputies to pick him up." "I ain't a fucking bounty hunter." "I know, Johnny," Parker said with a wide smile. "But you can find him or you can go to jail." "Why me?" asked John. Parker handed him the mugshot and rapsheet. He looked down at it before looking back up at Parker. "You got deputies, you got detectives who can knock on doors and beat bushes. Tax dollars don't go as far as they used to, Gene?" "He's important," Parker said petulantly. "And because I fucking say so. And you need to stop asking questions before I change my mind and have Clint bash in the fucking head with his shotgun. Is that reason enough?" John shrugged. He was getting annoyed and tired of Parker's schitck, but what the hell could he do? "I had Mark and Danny going through his usual haunts and friends. Nothing. Plus, where Beggs is concerned, I can't use my men." Parker lowered his voice and leaned forward. "People tend to clam up when a man with a badge starts asking questions. But you're a Norman..." "Well well well. The plot thins." Parker furrowed his brow before shaking his head. "Call it whatever you want, son. I just need a man with a certain reputation. All I am offering is a simple choice: Do this, or you can go to jail." John looked at the file Parker had given him and sighed. The fat man grinned wide. John tucked the folder under his arm and shook his head. "Fuck it. I'll see what I can do."