Title: Hostile Takeover, Hillbilly Style (9/10)

Author: Romantique

Email:

Classification: Raylan/Winona Drama/Romance

Rating: T for coarse language, violence, suggestive sexual situations. No worse than the show.

Summary: A brand new Justified fan, this is my first Justified fic. What happens next?

Disclaimer: SPOILERS: Takes place immediately after 'Bloody Harlan.'

Legal: These characters do not belong to me. I'm just a fan and have not made a dime. Please email me to obtain permission to post.

Enroute

With Winona both out of harm's way and out of earshot, Raylan felt he could finally speak freely to Boyd. "So, did Arlo hire you for protection?"

"Protection from what?" Boyd answered Raylan with yet another question. With one fewer passengers in the car, Boyd had graduated, from the backseat of Raylan's Lincoln Town Car, up to the passenger seat. "Arlo and I have long done business together. You know that."

"No, I don't … know anything," Raylan looked over and then, back at the darkened road ahead. And not knowing anything about the ins and outs of Arlo's activities was mostly by Raylan's choice. "Why don't you enlighten me?"

"Well, with the Bennetts gone, there's a power vacuum in Harlan," Boyd said, staring straight ahead, as he spoke.

"I'm aware of that," Raylan said, in a tone that telegraphed he was not in the mood for any bullshit.

"Arlo and I are just tryin' to make sure we don't get sucked up in that vacuum and spit out, left out in the dust," Boyd explained. "Or be killed by Dickie Bennett. You surely understand that latter part, don't you?"

Quickly glancing over again, Raylan answered, "Yeah, I do understand the Dickie part. But what I don't understand is the Hillbilly Heroin part."

This time, it was Boyd who looked over at the marshal. "Why must you assume we're involved with Hillbilly Heroin? Did you ever stop to consider that we only want to replace that void in the weed business that was left by the unfortunate demise of the Bennetts? Before someone else who is worse than us comes in and takes control? You've said it yourself, Raylan, … the Federals aren't really interested in our local, homegrown crop of herb. There is that, and Arlo's too old to be involved in somethin' as dangerous as traffickin' oxycontin."

"What about you?" Raylan jumped on the crux of what he wanted to know. "Are you too old to be traffickin' oxycontin?"

Boyd shifted his weight in his seat. "I know you won't believe me, but I would never want Ava to be involved in that kind of a life. She deserves better," Boyd nodded. "She deserves better than the weed business, too, but she also insists that she wants me out of the detonatin' business at the mine."

"Yeah? And what about blowin' stuff up, just because it's fun?" Raylan asked. "Are you givin' all that up for Ava, too?"

Not amused, Boyd answered with a straight face. "I ask you. Have you had any reports of anything bein' blown up here, lately? No, you have not. And therein lies the answer to your question. You continue to fail to believe me when I tell you I've changed. Now, back to the weed business … I've got to earn a livin' somehow." Then, he chided Raylan by asking, "Unless you think there's a job for me over at the Marshal Service?"

Raylan grinned. "Yeah, now that would be the day, wouldn't it? But seriously? Do you really expect me to believe that you're givin' up a job where you get to blow' shit up, and it's legal?" Raylan laughed.

"I would do anything for Ava," Boyd glared at Raylan.

Catching Boyd's drift that maybe he'd gone too far where Ava is concerned, Raylan quickly reversed course, "Hey, no offense intended. I just found it hard to believe."

"No offense taken," Boyd shot back. "But you can believe it, as it's the Gospel truth."

"Alright. I'll have to take you at your word." As they soon approached their destination, Raylan asked in all seriousness, "If I give you back your piece, can I trust you not to use it on me?"

Boyd smiled, as he looked over at Raylan. "It seems, once again, you and I have put in the unlikely position of havin' to trust one another for our common good."

"And what's that?" Raylan asked, thinking they had very little in common. "Our common good?"

"That we both make it through this night," Boyd clenched his jaw and stated it as a hard, cold fact, "alive."

At the Garner Mineshaft

As they approached the old, abandoned mineshaft, Raylan pulled off the road and cut the motor to his car, out of sight. He then reached into the glove compartment and retrieved Boyd's gun and handed it back over. On foot, they quietly made their way towards the mine, keeping their eyes peeled and their ears tuned for any sign of Dickie Bennett. It wasn't long before they spied a campfire near the shaft where Dickie and two men were loudly laughing and yucking it up in the cool night air, throwing their empty beer bottles into the fire. They all appeared to have had too much to drink.

Boyd motioned to Raylan that he was going to stay behind to get a different vantage point, as Raylan decided to take the direct approach and confront Dickie. With his trigger hand on the ready to draw his Glock, he approached the campfire. Raylan drew his weapon and clearly, loudly shouted, "Dickie Bennett, you're under arrest."

Dickie and the men looked up with a look of surprise on their inebriated faces. One of the men went for his gun, and Raylan immediately shot it out of his hand.

"Raylan, Raylan, Raylan," Dickie, taunted his former high school baseball rival, the taunting dripping in Southern charm. "Well, well. I've been waitin' for you. It's about time you showed your face."

"Now, Dickie," Raylan chastised the escapee and was equally versed in Southern charm, as he continued to stop toward him. "You knew I'd find you sooner or later."

"I did," Dickie smiled, sounding almost giddy, "I did. And you knew that when you did finally find me, you'd never take me alive. Not after what you did to Momma and Doyle."

"That was not by my hand," Raylan insisted, speaking in a tone that was as cool as a cucumber. "Your Momma killed herself, the same way she killed Loretta's father … with her 'Apple Pie,' after she found out Doyle was dead and you were in custody. And Doyle? He was shot by a sharpshooter, compliments of the U.S. Marshal Service. If you hadn't been hidin' down in the front seat of my car like a little girl, you'd have seen that for yourself."

"You are damn lie!" an angry Dickie shouted at the top of his lungs. "My whole family is dead on account of you. And Raylan … you are gonna pay."

A third man snuck up behind Raylan and clocked him across his shoulders and in the back of his neck and head with a 2 x 4, bringing Raylan down to his knees, where he then fell to the ground … the force was strong enough to knock the hat off his head and his gun out of his hand.

Stunned and woozy, Raylan was unable to defend himself when the crony was joined by another. Two of the men grabbed Raylan by his boots and arms and dragged him to the edge of the same shaft where Dickie and Coover had dumped Walt McCready's body, while the other one grabbed Raylan's gun and hat. Swinging the deputy marshal's limp form, on the count of three, they let go of him, watching him first fly up in the air, and then, down, down, down into the deep, dark vertical shaft.

Raylan felt himself go airborne and eventually land in pitch black darkness with a hard thud that rattled and sent shock waves through his entire body. "Ohhhhhhh, God," he moaned, as pain seared his left side. Beyond stunned, there was nothing he could do but lie there on the cold earth, in the dark. The damp odor and coolness of the dirt brought back a flood of unpleasant memories of working down in the mines. The pace of his breathing increased as being below ground gave Raylan a grave sense of claustrophobia, exacerbating the pain in his side. He consciously tried to relax, for his own good.

Up above ground, Boyd Crowder ran up behind and shot one of Dickie's men through the back, and then the other in the head in quick succession, before he aimed straight for Dickie and quickly shot the sawed off out of Dickie's hand. The third man began to run away from the mine, when Boyd shot him square in the back. He immediately dropped to the ground, lifeless.

"Your reign of terror is over," Boyd directed his remarks directly to Dickie. He aimed the barrel and said, "This is for shootin' Ava." Then, he aimed his piece straight for Dickie's heart.

"Wait! I didn't shoot Ava. I was there, but it wasn't me who shot her," Dickie pleaded, knowing Boyd was a mad man.

"And now, you are a damn lie," Boyd repeated exactly what Dickie had said to Raylan.

Then, three more gunshots rang out in quick succession, "bang, bang, bang."

After Boyd was satisfied that he was now alone, his attention turned to the marshal. "Hey, Raylan," Boyd shouted down into the darkness. "Can you hear me?"

"Is that you, Boyd?" Raylan's voice echoed back up the hole.

"Yeah, it's me," Boyd answered.

"What took you so long?" Raylan asked.

"Sorry, but I got waylaid," he explained. "Are you alright down there?"

"I dunno. I landed on my shoulder, my arm," Raylan's voice continued to echo up the shaft. "I don't mean to be a whiner, but my whole side … I think I'm hurt."

"Is it bad?" Boyd asked.

"Pretty bad," Raylan answered.

"Well, then, we need to get you on out of there," Boyd surmised.

"Sounds good to me," Raylan agreed.

Up above, Boyd lit a flair he'd found to shed some light on the night darkness. Then, he quickly looked all around, searching for something he could use to pull Raylan out. Suddenly, he spied a huge, coil of rope with a clamp on its end. "I'm gonna throw the end of this rope down to you. And, I want you to tie it off tight around your waist with the clamp, and I'll hoist you up. Do you think you can do that?"

"I can try," Raylan answered.

After a beat, Boyd continued, "Talk to me, Raylan. First, I'm gonna toss a flare down there so that you can see what you're doin', and I'd like to toss it away from you rather than at you. I need to know exactly where you are."

"That'd be good," Raylan shouted. "I'm over here."

Boyd then dropped another lit flare and watched it fall down, down, down into the other side of the shaft and watched, as it hit bottom. Suddenly, the entire shaft was illuminated, and Boyd figured Raylan was down some 25 to 30 feet. He then pitched the clamped end of the rope down to Raylan.

Using his one good hand, Raylan wrapped the rope around his waist and fastened it with a metal clamp. "Alright," Raylan shouted, indicating he was ready to get out of there.

Boyd wrapped the other end of the rope around a nearby pole, tied it off with a good, strong knot, and quickly put on a pair of gloves he found in a nearby toolkit. Then, he began to slowly pull Raylan's limp form up towards the surface. As Raylan moved closer and closer towards the surface, the rope slid from his waist, up around his chest and under his arms. He grimaced, as pain seared from his left side. The weight of his body pressed against the tautness of the rope in the area under his injured arm, as he dangled in mid-air. Raylan grabbed onto the rope, above, with his one good hand, attempting to take some of the weight off his injured side.

Meanwhile, from up above on Boyd's end, the closer Raylan got to the top of the pit, the heavier he became. Boyd braced his feet behind a large wooden beam so as not to be dragged into the shaft himself. After a time, Boyd panted and broke out into a sweat, as he pulled and pulled, struggling to hang onto the rope.

Just when he felt as if he could hold on no more, Raylan reached up and grabbed the top side of the shaft with his good hand to stabilize himself and take more of the weight off his injured side. "Ahhhhhhhh," he cried out, into the night.

Boyd felt the weight on the rope suddenly become lighter, and he quickly gathered up the slack and moved closer and closer to the law man. Then, he dug his feet into the earth and leaned down to grab Raylan by the forearm and pulled with all his might until Raylan's entire torso, from the waist up, was up above ground. Raylan kicked his legs up, out of the pit, as Boyd grabbed him by his belt and yanked him away from the edge in one quick motion.

"Oh, God," Raylan called out as he drew his legs up into his torso in pain. He was now out of the Bennett's death pit.

Out of both air and energy, the two men clung to one at the top of the pit, heavily breathing. Raylan was noticeably cold to the touch and began to shiver, his lips had turned blue. "Hang in there, buddy. I think you're goin' into shock." And Boyd quickly sat up and took off his jacket, and used it to cover the marshal. Then, he searched Raylan's pockets and found his cell phone, and he called Ava, giving her their location and asked her to call 911 to send an ambulance. And then, after he disconnected the phone, Boyd told Raylan that he would sit there with him for a while, but that he would soon have to take off.

"Dickie?" Raylan asked, teeth chattering and still lying on the ground, across Boyd's lap. "Is he dead?"

"You know I can't answer that, Law Man," Boyd looked down at him.

After a few beats, Raylan spoke again. "Boyd?" His voice was weakening, as he was having trouble staying awake.

"Yeah, Raylan?" Boyd asked, trying to keep him conscious.

"Thanks for gettin' me out of that shaft," Raylan mumbled before his eyes closed. "I don't like it much down there, underground."

"Yeah, I remember," Boyd said while his ears were tuned to listen for sirens. "And you're welcome."

To be continued …