Strawman's Hammock Read Online Free

you and Lou.” Bear stated that fact firmly. “And I can tell you there’s nothing like probable cause to make the FDLE go after the man. We are out of that loop, and you know it, Linton. You got a problem, best I can tell you is—go to Tallahassee.”
    â€œI’m thinkin’ closer to home,” Linton replied. “We got an election comin’ up, you know. Next year. Qualify by July fifteenth. I’m thinkin’ of backin’ a candidate against Lou Sessions. I got the money behind me. I can get the votes. And I got a man in mind.”
    â€œA candidate?” Barrett was mildly surprised. He had never known the Loyds to be involved in any honest contest.
    â€œA name, at least,” Linton affirmed. “I’d be interested in your opinion.”
    â€œNot sure I’d be the best to judge.”
    â€œNo one better. He’s a good lawman. Solid record. Broad experience. And he’s trusted. Ever’ swinging dick in this county trusts the man. I trust him, and I got to tell you, Bear, there ain’t many I trust.”
    â€œSo who is he?”
    â€œHe’s you, Bear.”
    The words took a moment to sink in.
    â€œYou think—you’re thinking I should run? Against Lou Sessions?”
    â€œI think lots of things. I think you want to be closer to Laura Anne and the boys. I think you’d like a way to be near to your home and people. I think you’d like to be the best damn criminal investigator in the state, too. And so I think if you chew it over, you’ll see the best way to do all that is to be the sheriff.”
    To be sheriff! It was sinking in. To be the head lawman in his hometown! His home county! To be able to rise with Laura Anne in the morning, see the boys off to school, and still get to work before eight o’clock. To end those endless commutes, canceled dinner dates, lost ball games and Sunday socials. To be able to throw Ben and Tyndall a ball every day after work, or go fishing. Sit beside them at homework. Hear their after-school tales! To be able to earn a living and be at home! That alone was worth considering. As for the other—
    â€œIt’s a natural progression for you, Bear. Either you go on to a federal agency and kiss off ever having a family life or you come home, as sheriff, and make your career right here where you belong.
    â€œYou’ll be the man, Bear. You can set your own course. Call your own shots. You can be the lawman you always wanted to be and have a life at home to boot.”
    â€œProvided I could get elected.”
    â€œNot a thing to keep you from it,” Linton assured him. “Not unless you got some deep, dark secret I don’t know about. Is there anything like that, Bear? Any Lewinskis in your closet?”
    â€œNothing but clothes,” Barrett replied.
    Not in his daytime closet, anyway. Not in any closet he could recall.
    â€œBut that doesn’t mean I could beat Lou Sessions.”
    â€œLet me back you, you can beat the goddamn pope.”
    But what would be the cost, Barrett wondered? What would be expected in return?
    â€œLet me think about it.”
    â€œSurely,” Linton smiled, just as happy, apparently, as if Barrett had accepted outright. “You do that, Bear. You think it over. And when you get done thinkin’ you come to me.”

Two
    Assuming you could find your way, Hezikiah Jackson’s cypress shack perched raw and primitive on loblolly stumps in the middle of Strawman’s Hammock. The Hammock, so named for its captured wetland and for the millenia of straw deposited by the last yellowheart pines to survive the timber barons, probably occupied no more than a thousand acres. Even an uneducated arborist could see the difference in the forest here. The loblolly or yellowheart pine was easily distinguished from the uniformly tall and narrow conifers hybridized to build houses or feed pulpwood mills. The trees in Strawman’s