by Blake Banner
I gave her hand a squeeze. “OK, Abi. Thank you.” I stood. “What can you tell me about the farm, about Aloysius and Karen Groves, and about her relationship with Vasco?”
She looked startled. “Very little. There are rumors about her and Joe, but I have no idea how much truth there is in them. Al is much older than Karen, and their son is very sickly and weak. They aren’t a happy family. As to the farm, I know they employ a lot of Mexican labor that comes up from Arizona. Word is it’s illegal, but he pays them a decent wage and nobody complains. Nobody ever sees them. They live and eat on the farm, so they are able to save and take the money home with them when they leave.”
“Aside from the illegals, how many men has he? How many men can Vasco count on?”
“I guess about ten men, all told.” She hesitated. “Is it true, what Sean says, that you killed Earl?”
“Earl and three others, Abi. They had instructions to kill Peggy, and then come after me.”
She gave a strange, unexpected smile. “I guess he only has six men, then.”
“I guess he has.”
She stood and came close to me. She held my face in her hands and kissed me.
“Thank you, Lacklan. Thank the Good Lord that you are here. We need you… I need you.”
thirteen
For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, Sean came to my rescue. I heard his door burst open down the corridor and his voice hollering my name. Abi closed her eyes and sighed. I moved past her and stepped out of the room. Sean collided with me. He looked pale with fear.
“They’re coming, Lacklan! I saw them with my binoculars! They’re coming in their trucks!”
I took hold of his shoulders and stared hard into his face. “Stay cool, focus, tell me: how many trucks?”
“Two! Two trucks.”
Two to four men. I turned to Abi, who looked as pale and scared as her son. I said, “Get out. Kitchen door, over the fence. Go to the church. Go! Now!” I turned and bellowed down the stairs, “Primrose! Here! Now!” But she had heard Sean and was already running up the stairs. I pointed toward the kitchen. “Vasco is coming. All three of you. Go. Now. Kitchen door, go to the church! Now!”
I turned back into my room, cocked one Sig, and stuck it in my waistband. I swept everything else back into my kit bag and went onto the landing. Abi and her kids had gone. I ran to the bedroom I knew was over the kitchen, opened the window, and looked down. There was nobody there, so I dropped the kit bag out and took the stairs three at a time down to the main entrance. Outside, I could hear cars pulling up. I put on my jacket, took a couple of deep breaths and saw, in my mind’s eye, the big Kiwi Sergeant I’d had in the Regiment, staring at me and growling, “Never pick a fight you are not sure you can win!” I stepped out with a hot rage building in my gut. This was a fight I could not win, so I had to move it to where I could win it.
They had stopped, forming a kind of triangle, nose to tailgate, in front of the guesthouse. There were eight of them. Two in each cab, and two riding in back. They all had shotguns. The sky had grown dark, though not as dark as night. The wind had picked up again, but was not yet a gale. The snow was heavy and drifting. They jumped down and climbed out of the cabs. I knew I had a real problem, but my main worry right then was to give Abi and the kids time to get away. I raised my hands and walked slowly along the path toward them. Vasco was not there.
I didn’t try to calibrate all of them. That was pointless. However good you are, you cannot take eight guys on your own, especially eight guys who probably wrestle bulls for fun. All you can do is reduce the odds and escape, then strike again. I selected two targets. The guy who seemed to be in charge, and the biggest guy I could see, who happened to be standing next to him, on his right—my left.
The guy in charge was at the front, just outside the gate, pointing a pump action shotgun at me. He was wearing a sheepskin jacket and a white cowboy hat. On his right was Man Mountain McCoy; six foot six of solid granite with a jaw that would break Mike Tyson’s fist, and a face completely undisturbed by thought.
I spoke to him, like he was the boss. “What do you want?”
He frowned, like he was trying to have a thought and didn’t know how. The cowboy hat answered.
“You’re coming with us, Walker. We’re going for a ride. Time for you to be moving on.”
I ignored him and kept talking to the gorilla. “I don’t want any trouble. You didn’t need to bring an army. I was just packing to leave.”
Now he looked distressed, like he had brain-ache. He glanced at his boss, who answered and sounded pissed. “Hey! I’m talking to you! Are you armed?”
I glanced at him briefly, like he wasn’t important, then answered the gorilla as I moved through the gate and into the road outside. “I have a nine millimeter. It’s in my waistband.” I still had my hands up. “I’m going to pull it out, release the clip, and put it on the ground. Are we cool?”
I waited. The cowboy hat who was supposed to be in charge was seven feet away from me, slightly to my right. The man mountain was a similar distance, slightly to my left. Just behind him was the red Toyota pickup he’d arrived in. Scattered behind the cowboy and around a Ford were the six remaining men. It was going to be tough.
The cowboy spoke in a tight voice. “You gonna talk to me, boy, or I’m gonna whip you within an inch of your goddamn life! Let me see the gun, and drop it!”
I reached behind my back very slowly. The key thing was slow down reaction time as much as possible. I had the cowboy and Man Mountain McCoy thinking about why I was talking to the gorilla instead of the boss. Now I had to make the six boys relax. I held up the Sig with my finger on the trigger guard so they could see it. I released the clip into my left hand and held both up for them to see. I gave them a second to relax. They were now sure that they were in control. I spoke to the man mountain.
“I am going to put it down.”
He was very confused as I bent slightly forward to drop the weapon in the snow. The cowboy was real mad and real determined to make me respect him. He was stepping forward when I shot him right between the eyes.
The 9 mm hollow point made a neat hole in his forehead but sprayed about twenty-seven cubic inches of blood, brains, and bone all over the six guys standing behind him. Everybody was going to be very confused for about three or four seconds, and I had a lot of work to do in that time. I had the magazine reinserted and the weapon cocked before the cowboy hit the snow. Man Mountain McCoy was gaping at his boss, still trying to have his first thought, when I shot him through the temple. Then I was running, with two seconds in which to put the trucks between me and the six guys with shotguns.
My plan was simple, and had the advantage of being what they would least expect me to do. I needed to lead them away from Abi and the kids, which meant away from the guesthouse, and away from the church. That in turn meant leading them toward the woods, where I could lose them and circle back behind the saloon and the terrace of houses, toward the plain. The last thing they would expect was for me to go to the farm. And that was exactly what I planned to do. I was going to strike at Vasco while all his men were searching for me up in the canyon.
That was my plan.
I ran four paces, turned, and ran another four paces backward, firing four shots randomly at the trucks. I smashed a windshield and popped a spotlight, then sprinted as best I could through the snow toward the cover of the trees at the foot of the north canyon wall. I heard two shotguns go off, but at that distance and in the snow they had no accuracy.
In among the trees I stopped, turned, dropped to one knee and raised my weapon. I’d expected to see six men chasing after me. Instead I saw empty snow, and in the distance the two trucks parked outside the Pioneer Guesthouse. Four men had taken cover behind the trucks, one was on a radio in the Ford, and another was aiming his weapon at the garden path, where Sean was standing in front of his mother, holding a kitchen knife, and Abi was weeping and begging him to drop it.
I went cold inside. Right there was the full impact of Sergeant Bradley’s wisdom. Sean had picked a fight he could never possibly win, and in his wild courage he had brought us all down.
My mind raced, weighing my options. If I handed myself over, all I would achieve would be to guarantee all our deaths. Also, Primrose was not there. She had been smart. She had gone to the church. So my plan was clear. Go to the back yard, collect my kit bag, ensure Primrose was safe, then cross the plain to the farm and open the gates of Hell.
That was a fight I could win.
I ran through the trees, up along the canyon until I was sure I’d be out of sight. Then I crossed the path into the southern slopes, at the height of the church, and crossed the woods till I came to the road that led down to the back of the guesthouse. There, I lay hidden among the trees, watching and listening, dissecting the sounds and the shadows. There was the sigh of the mounting wind in the pines, the distant, growing moan as it swept across the plain to the east and into the hills. There was the creaking of the boughs and the rustle of the branches, and there was another rustle that did not belong. I remained motionless, waiting, and after a moment a shadow broke from among the other shadows of the forest and slipped across the snow toward the church. I rasped, “Primrose! Here!” She stopped and turned. “It’s me, Lacklan!”
She ran unsteadily toward me. I pulled her in among the trees. She grabbed hold of me. “Mom and Sean! I lost them!”
“I know. Sean tried to take them on. Your mother went after him. Now I need you to listen really carefully. We’re going back to the guesthouse.”
“What?”
“They’re going to do one of two things: they’ll either interrogate your mother and Sean at the guesthouse, or they’ll take them back to the farm. If they interrogate them, I’m going to need your help. If they leave and go back to the farm, the guesthouse is the safest place you can be, because it’s the last place they’ll look for you.”
She looked scared. She looked sick. “My help…?”
“Let’s hope it won’t come to that. Follow me.”
I led her to the edge of the tree line, past the Wrights’ house and on to the short path that led from the church road to Main Street. I hunkered down at the corner and peered around. Through the heavily falling flakes, I could see the lights from the Toyota on the snow and two guys leaning on the hood watching the woods where I had disappeared. They couldn’t see me, but I covered them anyway and signaled Primrose to run quietly to the back yard of the guesthouse. She managed that without making a sound and I signaled her to wait.
I’d seen one of those guys talking on a radio earlier, and I wanted to know what they had talked about and, above all, who they’d been talking to. I moved across the path to the guesthouse wall and slid silently along till I came to the corner. The answer to my questions came almost immediately. There was a man talking.
“We checked out the whole house, Joe, there ain’t nobody here. We checked the back yard and there were footprints leadin’ to the fence. I reckon Primrose upped and ran, vaulted the fence.”
Vasco’s voice came back. “They ain’t got nowhere to go. They gotta come back here. Pete, you put the truck over there, down by the side of the saloon. Leave everything just as it is, door open and everything. You and Davie go and wait inside. Primrose is gonna come back. It’s gonna look like we left, see? When she does, you take her and you keep her here. I got something special in mind for her. If that son of a bitch Walker comes back, you shoot him, y’hear? You don’t mess around or try an’ bring him in. You just shoot him dead. And make sure he’s dead.”
“OK, Boss. We got it.”
“All right! Let’s get back to the farm before this storm gets any worse. I think this pretty lady has something she wants to tell me. Ain’t that right, Abi?”
Pete had climbed in the Toyota and was driving it across the road. He pulled in down the side of the saloon and disappeared from view. There was a lot of movement. I heard somebody, presumably Davie, go inside the guesthouse. Then, six truck doors slammed. I figured the Ford and a four-door, maybe the Jeep I’d borrowed the day before. That was eight men: Pete and Davie, and six who’d got into the vehicles. Then there were boots clattering into the back of a pickup. Two, maybe three men. So I was facing ten or twelve men; more than I had expected. I ran back along the path to where Primrose was waiting.
“Two men inside. They’ve taken Sean and your mother to the farm.”
She pointed to a damson tree with branches overhanging the road. I pulled myself up into the lower branches, slipped across the fence, and dropped into the back yard, twenty feet from the kitchen. The kitchen light was off, but there was light seeping through from the living room. Primrose slipped down beside me. I signaled her to be quiet and stay by the tree. The snow was falling heavier and the poor visibility, plus the partial frosting on the glass, were going to play in my favor. I crossed the garden, crouched down seven feet from the door, and got a good, clear look into the kitchen, just as Pete closed the door into the living room. I smiled. It was a cold evening. He wanted to keep the warmth in.
I was going to let the cold in. I was going to ice them.
fourteen
Man’s biggest enemy when he is fighting for his life is his brain’s instinct to predict what is going to happen next. It’s one of the reasons Zen advocates the empty mind. The empty mind is not a fancy spiritual state of consciousness. It’s a very difficult state to achieve and takes years of training, and consists simply in not thinking, not predicting what is going to happen next, so that you can react instantly, without having to work it out or make sense of it.
Pete and Davie obviously hadn’t been attending the local Independence Zen workshops. When I stepped into the kitchen and moved to the living room door, I could hear them inside, sitting in front of the fire, predicting what Primrose and I would undoubtedly do.
“There ain’t no way they’s coming back here, Davie. He’s smart. He holed up in them woods waitin’ for us to go after him. She went out back, you saw the footprints. She went over the fence and circled ’round through the woods to meet up with him. What he’s gonna do is hole up in a barn, wait out the storm, steal a truck, and git the hell out here with the girl. ’s what I’d do.”
Davie wheezed a laugh. “Can’t say I disagree with you, Pete. I’ll tell ya! I’d sure like to get that Primrose alone. Boy! You see that ass? I can’t blame him for takin’ off with her.”
Pete laughed. “We’ll, least we got an easy evenin’ ahead. You reckon she’s got some beer in the kitchen…?”
I figured I’d heard enough intellectually-challenged conversation for one night and I opened the door and stepped in. They had predicted I was holed up in a barn making hay with Primrose. So it made no sense at all that I should walk in through the kitchen door. Unarmed, it made even less sense. Their brains needed time to process and readjust to the new data. It was only a couple of seconds, but it only takes a quarter of a second to kill somebody.
Pete was in an armchair, sideways to me. Davie was in front of me in the other chair. They were both gaping. I had taken two strides before they reacted. Pete fumbled for his shotgun while he tried to stand, which meant his guard was down and the side of his head was exposed. My right fist caught him full in the ear and sent him crashing over the side of the chair. By the time I got around, Davie was on his feet with the barrel of his weapon aimed straight at my belly. He was six feet away, which put the barrel just within reach. He pulled the trigger as I leaned to the left and stepped forward. The pellets ripped at my jacket. I levered the shotgun up and grabbed it with both hands. He wrestled me for it and I smashed my boot into the side of his right knee. His face went white and his eyes bulged. I used his hands as a pivot and rammed the butt of the shotgun into his jaw. His eyes rolled and, as he slumped, I took hold of the back of his head and his jaw.
You don’t twist to the side like they do in the movies. All that does is cure a headache. You yank the back of
the head hard to the side, and push up hard on the jaw. That breaks the neck. I let him go and he folded to the floor.
Pete was tough. When I turned around, he was on his feet. His eyes weren’t focusing all that well, but he was ready to make a fight of it. He threw a right jab. I stepped left and leaned away from it, and in the same movement put my left forearm against his elbow. Then with savage speed and force I brought my right arm up against his wrist. I felt his elbow crunch. His bicep ripped and he screamed. I didn’t stop. I gripped his wrist and pushed hard on the broken joint. He sprawled face down on the floor, screaming and gibbering, trying to beg me to stop. I did. I let go of his arm. It flopped to the floor, horribly twisted. I shifted my left foot and slammed the blade of my right into the back of his neck. I felt the vertebrae crunch and, apart from a few twitches in his feet, he went quiet. His fighting days were over.
I turned to call Primrose. She was standing in the doorway watching me. She looked like she’d just swallowed a pint of last week’s clams.
I said, “I’m sorry you had to see that. You should have waited till I called you.”
She shook her head. “That’s not how we do things. I thought you might need help.”
I couldn’t restrain the smile. “Thanks.”
I searched in Pete’s pocket and found the keys to the Toyota.
Outside, the sky had gone black. I didn’t know what time it was, but it was dark as night. The wind was blowing hard from the north and lashing the snow like rain against my face. I struggled across the small square and down the side of the saloon. The Toyota was there. The windshield I had shattered with a shot had been kicked out and removed, and the seat and the dash were spattered with snow. I climbed in and reversed it, with difficulty, back to the guesthouse. Then I went in, dragged Pete and Davie, or what was left of them, out to the street and, with Primrose’s help, heaved them into the back of the 4X4. After that, I collected my kit bag from the back yard where I’d thrown it and slung it on the passenger seat.