Dirty White Boys

by Stephen Hunter

  “Locked! Locked! Locked!” Richard was sobbing.

  He meant the back door, Lamar thought. Fucking Pewtie had locked off the back door. Smart motherfucker. No other way out, except the side window.

  “Ruta Beth, you okay?”

  “Oh, Daddy, it hurts so bad. I got blood every damned place.”

  “Can you shoot, Baby Girl?”

  “What?”

  “Can you shoot, goddammit, Ruta Beth. Got to answer him. It’s that fucker Pewtie. You’re all I got.”

  Not really; he had the girl, too. He felt her squirm under him.

  “I don’t think so, Lamar. I got blood on my hands. So slippery.”

  She was losing it fast.

  “That’s okay, Baby Girl. It don’t matter. You’re still the goddamn champ. Listen here, I want you to slide out the door. He ain’t going to shoot, he sees you’re wounded. You yell for help. He’s going to say, Put your hands up, and when I hear his voice, I can nail him.”

  Ruta Beth crawled by him, leaving a black slime of blood. She got to the doorway and somehow pulled her way up. Then she stepped out on the porch, stood under the bright porch light. Lamar kneeled on Bud’s wife’s neck, calmed himself, and studied the darkness out the window, waiting for a scream. He had five double-oughts in the Browning cutdown. When it came, he’d flash to the area and pump the gun empty. If it was only one man as he now suspected, he’d at least hurt him.

  Bud had fallen back behind the Trans Am almost directly to the left of the house.

  Goddamn! Goddamn!

  It had all fallen apart. Now what? Lamar knew he was there and would just as sure as winter be calculating countermoves, if he hadn’t already cut Holly’s throat.

  But what Bud saw astonished him.

  It was the girl, Ruta Beth Tull. She stood groggily, her hands up. She was drenched with blood. He hadn’t even fired a second shot! Then he realized the Comedy King was having a good time tonight with the play of whimsy: He had decreed that the screen door turned out to be a storm door and it would deflect Bud’s bullet from Lamar, but the same Laugher saw that it hit Ruta Beth.

  “Don’t shoot,” she said. “I’s bad hurt.”

  She took a step forward.

  Bud put the front sight right on her head. The range was thirty feet; he could hit her in the face easy.

  “Don’t shoot,” she said, taking a wobbly step forward.

  He felt the trigger strain against his finger.

  Do it, he told himself. Do it and move on to the other.

  “Keep your hands high and come out and lie face down in the—”

  The window lit bright with harsh flame as someone fired five fast shotgun blasts at him. Bud had no consciousness of drawing back, only a sense of an explosion all around him as the buckshot tore into the hood of the car and spalled spastically against the windshield, blowing shreds of glass outward as it turned the sheet into webbed quicksilver. Abruptly the left side of his face went to sleep for what must have been a whole second, then began to sting.

  He touched his face: blood. But had anything penetrated? He felt a core of ache spread through his brain, and the suffocating odor of gunpowder swirled around him. But he seemed not to be mortally hit.

  Next he heard the crash of a window from the other side of the house. Lamar had jumped free.

  * * *

  Lamar knew the lawman would do the right thing, which was the wrong thing; he couldn’t just shoot poor Ruta Beth.

  And indeed, Lamar saw a shape hunkered by the left front fender of the Trans Am bending over a rifle and in a second he’d brought the sawed-off Browning up and unleashed its whole tube of shells. The bright fireworks of the gun flashes ate up the world and Lamar now wished for half a second he hadn’t cut it down, for with a full-stocked and barreled weapon, the highway patrolman would have been easy meat. But the gun bucked in his hands and he struggled to bring it back on line and each fresh blast lit the night for what seemed miles, though curiously so intent was he on the mechanics of it, he didn’t hear a thing.

  Then the gun came up dry, the smoke seethed in the air, and he thought he’d hit but he wasn’t sure. Only one thing remained now: to get clear, to get out. Nothing else mattered. If he got out of the house and across the fields, he could flag down a truck and commandeer it or steal a car from some square john or some such. But his ticket out was the goddamned girl, though she’d slow him somewhat; but Pewtie wouldn’t spray in his direction with the little wife along.

  “Come on, sweetheart,” he said, rising and pulling her up. The now useless shotgun fell away. He had a SIG, with seven cartridges, but no reloads. Too bad. Didn’t have time to look for other magazines now.

  In one powerful motion he pulled her along to the side window and threw her out. She smashed through the glass, caught her foot, and fell with a horrible thud to the earth. He leaped out and pulled her up.

  “Come on, goddammit, or I will put a bullet in your head and think no more of it.”

  He yanked her off into the darkness.

  * * *

  Bud stepped out from behind the car but then remembered Ruta Beth, still in the doorway. He drew back and put the rifle on her once again.

  “GET OUT, GODDAMMIT AND GO FACE DOWN!”

  But the woman just stared at him. Then slowly, she seemed to be raising her hands but she stopped midway, and pointed something at him. Was there a gun in it or what?

  Bud didn’t have time to think; the carbine fired, he threw the lever and fired again. He didn’t see the bullets strike, but with the second one, Ruta Beth seemed to deflate; all the air went out of her as she tumbled sideways and she seemed to hit the floor with sickening force, her arms and legs flung loosely akimbo.

  He wanted to race out after Lamar.

  But where was Richard?

  Where was Richard?

  Was it a trap? Maybe it was Richard who had gone out the window, and Lamar, reloading, just waited for him to show himself.

  No, it was Lamar. Only Lamar would be smart enough to get out the window that fast. Richard would be inside, in pieces. Richard wasn’t a factor, that was clear.

  Richard lay on the kitchen floor, sobbing.

  It was so unfair. Why did things always have to happen to him? Now the police were here and they would kill him. He hadn’t done anything. Didn’t they understand that? He was innocent. No blame should be attached to him. It wasn’t like he wanted any of this to happen. He actually tried to prevent it. In the restaurant, he had heroically screamed, trying to save the woman’s life. Ruta Beth had killed her, not him.

  Richard tugged on the door again. It wouldn’t budge.

  He turned and crawled to the door and peeked into the living room. The shooting had stopped. The windows were all blasted out and there was no sign of Lamar.

  “Lamar?” he called.

  No answer.

  He looked toward the door and saw Ruta Beth’s boots laying splayed on the floor of the porch. He suspected, after all the shooting, that Ruta Beth was still in them.

  He crawled over and peeked around. Ruta Beth lay on her stomach, in a huge and spreading black, satiny puddle of blood. She was utterly inert, utterly without signs of life. He’d never seen anything so still in his life.

  He faced the darkness.

  He raised his hands.

  “I surrender,” he said.

  There was no answer.

  It was the worst possible thing. Now he had to pursue an armed and very violent man across unknown terrain in the dark. He couldn’t shoot because he’d hit Holly. At any time, Lamar could double back to ambush him.

  You fool, he told himself.

  You stupid fool. You don’t have the sense of a buckworm.

  More out of anger than anything, he plunged ahead, trying to control his breathing, trying to regain his night vision after it was blown to hell by the gun flashes.

  But then he thought: Lamar is blind, too. Lamar won’t be able to see shit for a good five minutes.

>   Bud raced ahead, low. He tossed the carbine; it was useless in the close-quarter stuff that was coming up. This was straight cop work: an in-close gunfight with an innocent body in the way. He knew the statistics from Police Marksman magazine: The average gunfight now took place between twenty and twenty-three feet, with an exchange of between 2.3 and 5.5 shots. So he took out his .45 Commander, the bullet being a harder hitter and the gun being easier to shoot straight and well. It would be a close thing, if it happened at all: one, two shots, not like in the tattoo shop, with them all blazing away as if in a war movie.

  The gun’s familiar grip somewhat comforted him; its known contours, its safety exactly where the safety should be, its short trigger taut and sharp against his finger, the way it settled into his palm and the way his fingers clenched about it—all these things had their pleasures in the tension of the moment. He hunched, looking for signs in the field, thinking of course that Lamar would head for the nearest clump of trees so as not to be caught in the open. The prairie was empty and barren; but ahead, on the right, he saw a clump of trees in a fold, the only feature in the emptiness. There was no other place to go, no other route of escape, and he knew Lamar would move fast because he’d have figured there’d be fleets of cops there in no time.

  Or maybe he said fuck it, strangled the girl, and now had just flattened himself into the earth and waited for his blood enemy to approach.

  No. Lamar’s not like that. He’s a professional, whatever else he is, and would put first priority on escaping to steal and kill another day, on another chance to get Bud and get away. He wasn’t one for sacrificing himself.

  Bud crouched lower and hurried onward.

  The girl was slowing him down. He wanted to smash her to the earth. But the girl was the only card he had, so he had to hold her.

  He assumed Pewtie was following him. What choice did the lawman have? But when he looked back across the fields, he could see nothing, or nothing real; spangles of light, blue and orange like pinwheels from a Fourth of July when he was a boy, still danced before his eyes from the nearness of the shotgun’s fireworks. That’s the trouble with a goddamned sawed-off.

  Once, the girl went to her knees, but he pulled her savagely up.

  “You stay with me, girly, or I will finish you here, quietlike and then do your husband and go on my happy way.”

  He saw terror, and felt her squirm. She made a sound, low and raw, behind the gag. But she could not meet his power, and looked away, her eyes bugging, the veins in her throat standing out like ropes. She was bleeding, too, from the fall out the window; she’d hit her head hard. Tough shit. It was going to be a hard night on everybody.

  He pulled her along. He could see the dark line of the trees ahead only a hundred or so yards, and happily accepted the fact that cop cars and choppers and whatever hadn’t yet arrived. Maybe Pewtie hadn’t called them, had tried to do the whole thing on his own, some John Wayne kind of deal. But no: Pewtie would call for backup and then come in alone. Lamar knew the plan: Kill him and walk out with the girl, knowing the others would fade.

  Now Lamar was but fifty yards from the tree line. A sudden spurt of energy came to him, and he roared ahead, pulling the girl. She seemed wasted, without much fight, but in some mix-up of limbs, she went down and he got tangled in her and he went down, too, with a thud, tasting dirt as he fell. There was a slight moment of concussion, and suddenly she squirmed savagely and ripped away from him. With more power than he ever thought she had, she raced away.

  “Goddamn you!” he hissed and brought the gun up and began to press the trigger, but stomped on the impulse, knowing the flash would give him away. Instead he rose and leaped after her, slipping once in the mud, but in three short bounds had her. He tackled her, feeling his weight and strength bring her down, but she kicked and bucked under him, and he tried to push her face in the mud, but somehow his hand slid off her face, just enough to dislodge the gag.

  “BUD! BUD, OVER HERE!” she screamed as he finally pushed her face into the mud, but before he could do anything more, he saw Pewtie on the crestline. He drew up the pistol and fired. He couldn’t stop shooting, the mesmerizing pleasure of it drawing him onward as the gun leaped in his hand and the gun flashes blossomed like a tulip of light. Pewtie disappeared.

  He didn’t think he’d hit him.

  “Come ON,” he yelled, pulling her up, but again she pulled away and this time instead of running after, he simply watched her run and then himself turned and headed to the trees.

  Bud saw movement and brought the gun up to fire.

  He took the slack out of the trigger as the phantasm wobbled desperately to him but saw in the next second it was Holly.

  “Holly. Here.”

  She slipped as she turned, and he ran to her.

  “I got away. He didn’t shoot me. Oh, Bud, I knew you’d come.”

  He got out his knife. He cut her arms free. She threw them about him.

  “Oh, Jesus. Bud, you have saved my life sure.”

  He said nothing.

  “You do love me. You came for me. God bless you, mister, you are a man.”

  “Yes, well,” he said.

  “Bud, you must love me, what you risked for me.”

  “Holly—”

  “Take me out of here.”

  “You have to do that yourself. I want you to go into the field and just lie down flat no matter what happens. We got everybody coming in on this thing in a minute or two. You’re safe. You made it. I got you out.”

  “You’re done, Bud. Oh please don’t do what I think you’re going to.”

  “I have to finish it up now. I’ve got to go get Lamar.”

  “Bud! He’ll kill you!”

  “I have to—”

  “Bud!”

  “I have to go.”

  But she pulled him toward her, as if to draw him in forever, to make him hers now that it was so close, so easy and—

  He hit her with his open hand, hard, left side of the head, driving her down.

  No one had ever hit her before.

  His nostrils flared, his eyes were wide and strange and fierce. She saw nothing in them at all that she could recognize.

  “Don’t you get it yet?” he almost screamed. “It’s over! Goddamn it, I am quit of you and you are quit of me! Now get out of here. I got man’s work to do.” And without looking back he set off down the crest for the trees, knowing that he had another few minutes until Lamar’s eyes regained their night vision. He saw the dark band of vegetation up ahead, dense and beckoning and otherwise silent.

  Wait for backup, the rules all said.

  Not this time, he thought. This time we get it done.

  Lamar crouched in the trees. No moon, no stars, it was so damned dark. His eyes still weren’t working right. Shooting at the cop had been stupid, Like an amateur, like something little-bitty-dick Richard would do. The gun flashes again so close to his face had blasted his vision to hell and gone: everywhere he looked he saw stars and pinwheels, dragons breathing fire, lions’ manes flashing in the sun.

  Time. He had no time.

  He also had almost no ammunition now. The gun hadn’t locked back, but he slipped the magazine out and felt its lips and realized they were empty. That meant he had but one cartridge, the one in the chamber.

  Damn!

  He thought he saw the man coming down the slope through the strobe effect, but there was no way it was a clear-enough image to shoot at. And he couldn’t even see his gun.

  The only way was to get in close, real close, put the gun up to him so the muzzle touched flesh, and then blow him away with the last bullet.

  But Lamar didn’t like that either. It depended on Pewtie getting close and once he got in the goddamn trees there was no way of telling which way he would go. And Pewtie saw better than he did, because the rifle hadn’t flashed nearly so much as the shotgun and he hadn’t fired in quite a while. And Lamar couldn’t just wait. The longer he was here, the surer it was he’d get caught
.

  No sir. Got to bring him to me and kill him fast and get on out of here before the posse shows.

  An idea flashed before him.

  The gun, the gun, the gun.

  Yes. Secure the gun in the crotch of a tree. With a branch or something wedged into the trigger guard. Let Pewtie come. When he approaches, fire the last shot.

  Pewtie will then fire back on the gun flash with every damn thing, blowing his own eyesight to hell and gone. Then he’s blind and you ain’t.

  In the second after he’s done, you hit him hard and low and take him down. It becomes a thing of man on man, strength against strength, and Lamar knew that there was no man who could stand against him one on one. If Pewtie had any doubts, he could ask Junior Jefferson.

  Lamar slipped back and in not much time found what he needed: a young sapling with a stout crotch maybe five feet up. Lamar wedged the SIG into it, slipped off his belt, and secured the gun tightly. He looked around and then up and with a snap broke off a four-foot length of branch.

  Ever so delicately he wedged the tip into the trigger guard so that it just about filled the gap between trigger and guard. Force it another half an inch and it would trip the trigger and the gun would fire.

  Lamar slipped down, waiting for the sounds of his quarry.

  I’ll still get him, he thought.

  Bud had reached the trees.

  No sir, don’t like this a bit

  He reasoned now that if he had to shoot, it would be in response to fire, and he wanted a lot of chances, not a few. So he restored the .45 Commander to his high hip holster and reached up and unslung his Beretta. With a thumb he snicked the hammer back. Then, finger on the trigger, he began to snake ahead.

  He’s in here, goddammit, just waiting till his vision clears enough. Got to move fast or I’m a dead man.

  He slid into the brush. His night vision was clear as it could be. Before him he saw only a thin maze of trees, ground cover, the furrow that Was a stream, beyond, a fence, and beyond, way beyond that, the humps of the Wichitas. But no Lamar.

  He was so slow, he was sure Lamar couldn’t see him.

  He eased ahead, almost soundlessly, scanning as he went, seeing nothing.