Never Tell Them, N.L. Hinkens [unputdownable books txt] 📗

“What are you talking about?” Ray yelled. ”I would never have agreed to anything like that. Tom was my brother. You have no idea what we lived through and what he meant to me.”

Tom told me plenty about what went on.” Buck’s eyes simmered with a hint of molten anger. ”He was pretty screwed up, you know.”

Ray swallowed the prickly knot mushrooming in his throat, all at once aware he was sweating profusely beneath his damp jacket. He fought to keep his composure. “What do you mean?”

A wary distance entered Buck’s eyes. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

Ray could feel a wave of panic mounting inside. What was Buck alluding to? “You can’t just throw something like that out there and then leave me hanging,” he said, trying in vain to keep the tremor of desperation out of his voice. “What do you mean, he was screwed up?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore. He’s dead and buried now, and maybe it’s a good thing.”

Before he even realized what he was doing, Ray leaped to his feet and grabbed Buck by the throat. “Don’t you dare talk about Tom like he was a piece of garbage! His life was worth something to me!”

Buck shoved him backward with a single thrust of his brawny arm. “Get your hands off me! You’re just as messed up in the head as your brother!” he growled. “What are you trying to do, kill me too?”

Ray gasped, shrinking back in horror, dizzy and disoriented. He stared down at his hands, half-expecting them to be covered in blood. “I … I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. When you said that about Tom being screwed up, I … I flipped.”

“I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know,” Buck huffed. “You’re the one who found it on him.”

The hairs on the back of Ray’s neck prickled. ”Found what?”

Buck scratched the side of his cheek, his gaze flitting briefly to the door and back. ”Look, Ray, I feel bad about you losing your memory and all, but we swore we’d never talk about it again.”

Ray thought for a moment. He desperately needed a compelling reason to overcome Buck’s reluctance to keep talking. “I don’t remember any of what you’re telling me, but I believe you. The problem is, if I don’t know what I’m not supposed to talk about, I might accidentally say something. My brain’s still a scrambled mess from the accident.” He lowered his voice. ”Buck, please. I’m begging you. I need answers, and you’re the only one who can help me. My brother was as good as dead to me for twenty years—until I found out he was alive. I came here today to patch things up after our fight, and now you’re telling me I killed him. Can you imagine how I feel? I’m gutted. I don’t remember him dying, and I don’t remember you burying him. You’ve got to tell me everything. It’s important. What did I find on him?”

Buck turned and paced across the floor for several minutes before abruptly resuming his seat. He gestured for Ray to sit back down on the bench. “I’m only going to tell you this once and then it’s over and done with—for good this time.”

“Yes, of course,” Ray said, with a vigorous nod.

Buck cleared his throat, his brow trenched. “That day on the mountain when I ran into you, I’d lost my hunting dog, Drake. I’d been out looking for him for hours, whistling for him, backtracking my route. He found his way home later on that day, and I came by to tell Tom—he’d been helping me look for him.” He broke off and rubbed his hands over his knees, as though preparing himself for what he was about to divulge. “When I got to the cabin, I heard hollering and shouting so I hung back for a few minutes—didn’t wanna get in the middle of anything. Anyway, it got worse. Sounded like you guys were smashing the place up. I didn’t know who you were. I thought I’d better show my face and make sure Tom was all right.” His voice trailed off and he stared morosely at the floor.

“Did you … see me punch him?” Ray asked.

Buck gave a reluctant nod. ”Right when I pushed open the door, he fell backward and hit his head. Your fist was raised. It was pretty obvious what had happened. I ran over to Tom and shook him, yelled his name a bunch of times, but he didn’t respond.”

Ray pressed his clenched fingers to his lips. “Are you sure he was dead?”

“He had no pulse,” Buck mumbled in response. “There was nothing I could do.”

“Did you at least try to save him?” Ray hissed through gritted teeth. “Don’t you know all that CPR stuff, living out here on your own?”

Buck glared at him coldly. “I’m not a doctor. I can set a bone or tend to a wound. I can’t bring a man back from the dead.”

“I’m sorry,” Ray said, raising his hands in a placating gesture. “It’s hard to hear, that’s all.”

“You’re the one insisted on talking about it,” Buck shot back.

“I know. So, what happened once you—we—realized Tom was dead?” Ray asked, only too aware his voice was shaking uncontrollably. He still couldn’t believe it. It was inconceivable that he had killed his own brother and let a stranger bury him. He’d covered up a crime—his own brother’s murder. This wasn’t who he was. Or was it? He frowned, rubbing his temples. He didn’t know who he was anymore.

“I knew we had to bury the body right here in the woods—keep the cops out of it,” Buck answered. “You didn’t want to go along with the idea, at first. You thought someone would report him missing. But no one’s going to miss a mountain man. You live out here, you die out here. Your stuff gets passed around,