The aunt rubbed Glenda’s shoulder while looking up at the steeple spire.  "The kind that needs to be run out of the county."

* * *

  Izard County Sheriff’s Sergeant Darrell Flippin had his boot to the floor of the Ford Crown Vic.  All two hundred horsepower at a full race as the cruiser sailed down two-lane Highway 65.  Blue and red lights flashing.  The siren rising and falling.

  Darrell had short, dark, curly hair.  And when he hit the weights in high school, an unusually-large number of girls attended the wrestling matches as Darrell wrestled light heavyweight his junior and senior years.  When he graduated ten years ago, the one solid thing he took with him was the discipline and determination he’d learned on the mat.  Then there was Mr. Fist, Darrell’s wrestling coach, his voice as fresh in the sergeant’s mind today as it was ten years back.  Let’s go, Flippin! I want you movin’ like spit on a griddle!

  The toes on Darrell’s right foot were numb from pressing the gas pedal as he accidentally shot past the old Baptist Church and crowd outside.  He slammed on the brakes and the cruiser laid rubber on the highway coming to a screeching stop.

  The Barnett clan was at a loss; maniacs everywhere; in the church; on the highway.  Several of the younger, fleet-of-foot members ran, seeking shelter behind the oak trees at the edge of the parking lot.

  Darrell shoved the car in reverse, backed up on the highway, then pulled in.  The people behind the trees came forward.  He got out dressed in navy-blue pants and a light-blue, western-style shirt.  A wide leather belt around his waist carried twelve pounds of sheriff’s equipment: a nine-millimeter Beretta semiautomatic pistol, radio, pepper spray, and handcuffs.

  "How many are inside?" Darrell asked.

  "Please people¾ ," Darrell said, motioning them back.

  "How many of our folks? Or how many crazies?" someone in back asked.

  "Both," Darrell said.

  The group murmured.

  "There are two family members hurt inside," a man finally said, "and a nut with a club."

  "They’re my brothers."  Glenda pushed her way through the crowd.  Tears had washed the mascara from her eyes.  She held a cigarette near her shoulder to avoid burning her kinfolk.  "The man who attacked them is my ex-husband."  She was almost sobbing again.  "Claude Pumford."

  "Does he have a gun or any other weapons?" Darrell asked.

  The men’s heads twisted from side to side like a flock of confused chickens.  Then one spoke.  "Just the club was all we saw.  But he’s got on these karate fighting pajamas, so we think he knows martial arts."

  "Tell the officer about the coons," a man in back said.

  "He doesn’t care about racoons," the man speaking for the group said.

  "He will if they get ahold of him!"

  "They’re not going to bother him."

  "He can’t control whether they fall through the ceiling or not," said another man.

  "He just needs to worry about Claude!"

  "What if he hears them and thinks Claude’s in the attic?" yet another man asked.

  "Would you shut up about the coons!"

  "Just tell me," Darrell said.

  A man in back went up on tiptoes.  "The city charges seventy-five dollars a day to rent this place and you got to worry about being attacked by falling animals.  Is that a sour deal or what? Can you talk to them for us?"

  The man in front turned to the ones behind him.  "For the last time¾ "

  "Help me!" the shout came from inside the church.  Then a scream that turned to a cry, followed by silence.

  Darrell hurried to his car, opened the door and pressed a button that released a Remington twelve-gauge pump shotgun from its mount on the wire cage behind the driver’s seat.

  Several little boys ran to the opposite side of the car, smudging the window with sticky fingers and excited breath, eyes wide.

  "You men," Darrell said, "get these people as far back as you can.  In fact, if you want to leave that would be better."  He pumped the shotgun’s slide, running a shell into the firing chamber.

  "We’re not leaving as long as we got family in that church," a man said.

  Another sheriff’s car came tearing down the highway.  The metal of the suspension squeaking with torque as it fought to slow down, then pulled in with lights flashing.  A cloud of dust floated across the lot.  A young deputy named Hank Farley got out and sprinted to his sergeant.

  "What happened, Darrell?"

  "These folks were having a family reunion when some guy showed up and started a fight," Darrell said.  "Everybody got out, except two that are injured inside, along with the perp."

  Another scream came from the church; the walls of the building adding a muffled, desperate tone.

  "Oh, please, God, no¾ ," Glenda wailed.

  The aunt again pulled Glenda’s head into a comforting shoulder.

Chapter One

  Blackberry spring is a time of year when the Ozark hills of northern Arkansas are as green and thick as a rain forest, but with a sharp chill in the air.  The last days before the summer humidity sets in.

  Under the evening sun, a mimosa tree sat with its cascading limbs full of delicate pink buds.  A long run of wild possum grapevines had grown below, their stems wrapping through a broken-down wire fence along a gravel road.

  On the other side of the lane was the old Gassville Baptist Church, its clapboard siding caked with thick layer after layer of white paint.  Air-conditioning units filled the lower halves of several windows, while the uppers still held antique lead glass. The church now served a new purpose as a secondary community center.

  Almost a hundred people¾ four generations of the Barnett clan attending a family reunion¾ had abandoned their fanciest bowls of fried chicken and potato salad inside and stood on the dirt parking lot mingling among the cars.

  No one dared to go within fifty feet of the church steps.

  Men in overalls, a few in trousers, stayed close to the female half of the group while watching the building with careful eyes.

  The children stayed the farthest away, lost to the moment, caught up in a game of chase and tag.  Several of them eating pieces of cake or hotdogs that they had somehow managed to escape with.

  A scream came from inside the church.  Every head turned. The sound unlike anything they’d ever heard.  A cry given to flesh and muscle being torn, crushing the artery and bone underneath.

  Glenda Barnett was twenty-five years old.  Her shoulder-length brown hair moved in waves, up and down at the collar of the white silk blouse as her head shook, crying in her aunt’s arms. "What kind of idiot judge orders a wife beater to take karate classes!" Glenda shouted as her face came up for a breath.