Then the eerie, ringing silence descended again. This time the silence lasted. Montana wanted to get into the loft because he’d have the advantage of height and surprise.
The gunmen were probably approaching the barn. If they were smart, they’d be cautious. They’d take their time. But he could not take his time. He needed to move fast.
Carefully, he raised his head. He thrust his gun into the holster, picked up Rickie’s sagging body, and made for the ladder. He climbed into the loft as quickly as he could, Rickie over his shoulder. The ladder was metal; its rungs were bent by bullets and one was chopped raggedly in half.
He dropped the kid faceup in the hay. The dust was still chokingly thick, but there was nothing he could do about it. He rose, drawing his gun.
He heard men’s voices. They were approaching the front of the barn. Were they coming in to check the bodies? To count them?
He moved to the east door of the hayloft, which hung slightly open. The wooden bar that had held it fast had been shot off. It swung back and forth in the breeze, creaking slightly.
He stepped over to it and gazed down. Two men were just below him. Only two, he thought. He remembered the third man had gone into the pines after Laura and Trace. His jaw clenched.
They entered the barn. He moved softly to the edge of the loft. He could just make them out in the haze and the shadows. They could see little, he knew.
He started to take aim, knowing he had to get this right, he could make no mistakes. They had him outnumbered and outgunned; if he missed, he wouldn’t get a second chance.
Then he heard Rickie stir in the hay, sigh, and give one of his little cat coughs. The sound seemed louder than all the gunfire of the night.
But the men, treading carefully through the hay and splinters, did not seem to hear.
Stay quiet, kid, Montana prayed, setting his teeth. Stay quiet and let them move just a little nearer so I can get two good shots. That’s all I need. Another sixty seconds. Two good shots.
He steadied his gun hand with his scarred one, braced his legs slightly apart, the good old Weaver stance he’d learned in the police academy.
Come on, baby, come on, he thought, waiting for the man in back to step just a little more into the open. Two more steps and you’re mine.
But the man in the rear hesitated, looking around the shattered barn. He held his weapon ready.
“I don’t like this,” Montana heard him say. “Where are the bodies?”
“Maybe they’re up there,” said the man in front. He nodded toward the loft. If he’d looked hard enough, he would have spotted Montana through the haze and the shadows, waiting to get both men in his sights.
The man raised his weapon. “Maybe we should shoot straight up for a while,” he said.
No, Montana prayed. Thirty seconds more. Give me thirty seconds more and step this way. Just a few feet closer.
At that moment, behind Montana, Rickie began to scream. He screamed on and on, like a lost and tortured soul.
EIGHTEEN
Shots rang, echoing across the night, coming from the direction of the barn.
Santander heard the roaring crash of magazine after magazine being fired. Luppler and Alvirez were strafing the building into fragments. Santander felt a surge of satisfaction, but only a small one. What he wanted most was the woman.
His cheek stung where she had shot him, la puta, the slut, the whore. And now she was eluding him. He’d followed her tracks to the edge of the pond, and there they’d disappeared.
A shifting veil of snow scudded over the pond’s flat surface, making footprints impossible, making tracking her impossible if she’d fled that way.
Shacks stood on the ice, and he knew what they were: fishing houses. Had she disappeared into one of them? Was she that scared, that foolish?
If she was there, he would find her, and when he did, he could kill her as slowly as he liked and any way he liked.
But what if she was trying to outsmart him? What if she had cut across the ice to head into another section of woods, throwing him off her trail? He rubbed his cheek and tried to outguess her.
If he stopped to search the houses, she could be running farther, every second putting more distance between herself and him. How would he pick up her trail again?
But he had to investigate. Perhaps she was trying to get the drop on him. She could shoot him through a door cracked open. Or perhaps she was simply exhausted.
He set down the gasoline can, raised the Uzi, and emptied its thirty rounds into the little houses, ripping a line of bullet holes right across their middles. He shot up the nearest house the most, so much that it actually danced on the ice, shifting its position almost a foot.
Devils and hell, he thought, lowering the gun. He would never know if she was in one unless he looked. He reloaded the Uzi, moved to the first house, and tried to ease open the door. It was locked.
Methodically he poured shots at the lock. He stepped to the side of the building and sprayed it with bullets, top to bottom, until the gun was empty again. He reloaded and kicked in the door, his gun ready, just in case she was inside, wounded yet still able to shoot.
But the house seemed empty. He lit his cigarette lighter and took a closer look by its flame. The bullets had knocked over two chairs and riddled an old coat that hung on a peg. A pair of fishing rods had been jarred from a crude rack and lay on the ice.
He backed out, leaving the open door creaking in the wind. He went to the next house. It, too, was locked. Once more he took aim and squeezed his trigger until the locks were blown apart; the door groaned and swung inward.
He systematically poured the rest of the thirty rounds into the interior. Then he put in an another magazine of ammo, kicked open what was left of the ruined door, and looked inside.
This house was even emptier than the other. It held nothing but a rusted tackle box dented and pierced by bullets. The wind whistled through the holes in the wooden walls. He lit his lighter again to make sure.
Nothing. He moved on to the next house.
• • •
Montana didn’t have time to think why the kid was screaming. He looked down at the two figures obscured by drifting dust and shadows. He fired.
He fired eight times in rapid succession. No one fired back. He saw one man crumple, toppling forward into a heap. The other staggered backward, out of sight. Montana thought he’d hit him more than once, but wasn’t sure.
Rickie shrieked more wildly and desperately, but Montana didn’t let it register. He eased along the edge of the loft until he could see the second man, who lay fallen across a bale of hay. His head and one arm hung motionlessly over the bale, and Montana saw the hay darkening with blood.
The other man lay just as still, facedown on the floor. Montana took no chances. He emptied his gun into the two bodies.
Then he took a fresh clip of ammunition and slid it into the automatic. Keeping it aimed toward the bodies, he climbed awkwardly down the ladder.
Above him in the loft, Rickie still wailed and shrilled, but Montana ignored him. He knelt by the first man, rolled him over, felt for a pulse in his neck. There was none.
He went to the second man, and pulled him off the hay bale, onto the floor. He turned him over and felt his throat. There was no pulse there, either.
Montana felt no emotion except a weary cynicism. There was at least one gunman left, and he’d gone after Laura. And Rickie was up in the loft, screaming bloody murder without stop.
Montana shoved his gun back into its holster and climbed back to the loft. Rickie had scuttled to its farthest corner and sat, hugging his knees and banging his head against the ruined wall. His dirty face was streaked with tears, and his voice was raw.
Montana went to him, knelt by him, tried to draw him into his arms. Rickie cried harder, striking and kicking wildly. His cries grew so fierce they strangled in his throat, too shrill for his vocal cords.
Montana seized the boy by the shoulders and shook him, at
first gently, then hard. “Rickie,” he said, “stop—stop. Tell me what’s wrong. Are you hurt? Tell me where you’re hurt.”
Rickie shook his head and kept on crying, a terrible sort of crying because it made only high, choked shrieks and moans.
“Tell me where you’re hurt,” Montana pleaded. “I’ll help.”
Rickie shook his head and wept even more wildly. He pointed toward the center of the loft. At first Montana could see nothing. But Rickie kept sobbing and pointing, and seemed close to going into convulsions.
Montana rose and stumbled through the hay. The air was still thick with dust, and his head vibrated from the thunder of so much shooting. Rickie’s screams only made it ache worse.
Then he saw it. Lying in the hay, its great, shattered wings spread, was a large gray-and-white owl. Bullets had torn its body half apart. But its head was almost untouched. Its sharp beak hung open as if it had screamed out in anger when it was hit, and its great eyes glared emptily at the rafters.
A bird, Montana thought. A big, damned bird.
He picked up the mutilated thing, and Rickie shrieked even more hysterically. The poor kid must have come to and found himself staring at the owl, his worst nightmare come true.
Montana moved to the loft door, kicked it open, and flung the bird as far as he could. Then he turned and went back to Rickie. This time he didn’t let the kid fight him off. He gathered Rickie into his arms and held him so tight that the boy couldn’t struggle away.
“It’s gone,” Montana kept repeating until Rickie finally quieted to tired, hiccoughing sounds and cried against his shoulder. “It’s gone.”
“Where?” Rickie snuffled. It was the first coherent thing he’d said. “Where?”
Montana remembered Laura comforting the boy about the picture of the swan on Stallings’s tie. “Japan,” he said from between his teeth. “The owl flew to Japan. It’s gone now.”
Then Montana heard the staccato of gunfire from the direction of the pond.
Laura huddled in the dark, four houses away from him. She couldn’t see what he was doing, but she knew.
When the man had fired the first time, she’d been crouching on the icy floor, holding Trace tight. The bullets had missed her head by only inches.
When she’d first darted inside carrying Trace, she’d knocked against something leaning against the back wall. The rattle and unexpected contact had terrified her until she’d remembered what it was—chairs, folding chairs, stacked against the wall.
She’d cowered with Trace and hidden in the corner behind the chairs. She’d prayed that if the gunman opened the door, she and Trace would be concealed. He might not see them, he might go on.
But she’d underestimated him. He was methodically blasting the fishing houses into pieces, and she knew he would find her, perhaps kill both her and Trace before he even opened the door. She’d been foolish to hide in the house, for now they were trapped.
Her heart racing, she knew she had no choice. She must try to shoot him first. Her hands were numb, she was shaking, and she didn’t even know if Jefferson’s gun held any bullets.
Before tonight she had never shot an automatic. She’d been taught to shoot a revolver that held six bullets in its chambers. Automatics had clips, not chambers, but different automatics had different sizes of clips. Did she have two bullets left? Ten? None?
It didn’t matter, she told herself; it was the only chance they had, and if she had any bullets, she’d have to hit him with the first shot. If she missed, he would know where she was, and he’d rip their fragile little shelter to shreds.
Freezing air flowed through the holes that gunfire had already torn through the walls. The holes were big and ragged, and she tried not to think what such bullets would do to a child’s body or to hers.
She moved as soundlessly as she could, leaving Trace’s motionless body hidden behind the chairs. Crouching, she reached the door and eased it open an inch. She saw the gunman, and her heart felt as if a hook had caught it, hauling it out of her chest.
He stood with his back to her, aiming at the fourth fishing house. He was only two houses away from her and Trace.
Do it now, she thought. Fire. Hit him in the back. If that doesn’t kill him, shoot him again.
He stood, his back still to her, reloading the Uzi.
Now—now! she thought. But again she hesitated, paralyzed by the enormity of what she was doing.
Then, very deliberately, she aimed for the center of his back. She bit her lower lip so hard she tasted blood. She squeezed the trigger.
“Shh” Montana told Rickie. “We have to get Laura and your brother. Shh.”
“No more shooting,” Rickie said, scrubbing the tears from his eyes with his fists. He sounded both angry and exhausted, and his voice was a raspy whisper. He’d screamed himself hoarse.
Montana took the boy’s chin in his hand. “Don’t cry,” he ordered. “Don’t talk. Don’t make a sound. If you cry, the owl might come back. You have to make the owl stay away. Be quiet. Is your watch running?”
Rickie looked too terrified to speak, but he raised his wrist and looked at his watch with fearful eyes. The watch, Montana saw, still worked. Its luminous second hand swept slowly round the face.
“Be quiet for thirty minutes,” Montana ordered. “Understand? Thirty minutes. Be quiet so we can get Trace and Laura.”
Rickie’s lower lip twitched, and fear and dismay shone in his eyes. But perhaps he was too spent to cry again. Or perhaps Montana’s intensity had gotten through to him. He sniffled and looked sick with fright, but he made no other sound.
“Okay,” Montana said. “Quiet. For thirty minutes. Even if there’s more shooting, Rickie stays quiet. Now come on. I’ll give you a ride. Put your arms around my neck. Hang on tight.”
He held the boy to his shoulder. Rickie hung on tensely, hiding his face against Montana’s neck. Awkwardly Montana climbed the ladder out of the loft.
Gaining the floor, he kept his right arm around Rickie. He bent and picked up a Calico that lay by one of the men. The guy had an ammo belt across his chest like a Pancho Villa bandit. Montana helped himself to a few extra magazines, just in case.
He heard gunshots again, a spattering of them. They came from the direction of the pond. Hurriedly, he pulled the dead man’s jacket off and wrapped it around Rickie.
Rickie stared down at the corpses dispassionately, as if he didn’t understand who or what they were and didn’t care. He looked away from them and nervously up at the loft, as if he feared another owl might appear and swoop down.
Montana moved to the barn door, which stood open, its wood perforated with bullet holes. He looked about.
His mind spun crazily. He couldn’t leave the child. But how in the hell could he take a kid to stalk a killer?
“You’ve got to do everything I say,” Montana whispered. “Do what I say, and don’t make a sound—remember?”
Rickie’s eyes filled with tears, his face crumpled, and he put his hands over his ears. But he said nothing. He said not one word.
“Rickie has to save Laura from the bad man,” Montana said. “Rickie has to save Trace, too. Stay quiet.”
Rickie looked forlorn and kept his ears covered. He suppressed a sob.
“That’s a good kid,” Montana said. “That’s a champ. Help me now. Help me, Rickie. Help Montana.”
Montana hoisted the kid to his arm and hoped they wouldn’t be mowed down crossing the snow. He ran for the pines, hugging the boy fast against him. From the direction of the pond came another spattering of automatic fire.
And then one gunshot, different from the others.
Laura, he thought, running harder, his breath tearing his lungs. Laura.
• • •
The gun kicked in her hand, almost knocking her backward. The shot’s crash deafened her and resonated through her nerves like electric shock.
Horrified, she saw the man was still on his feet, but his body had hunched strangely. Then he
vanished—lurching for cover behind another fishing house.
Frantically she kept firing in his direction, again and again. She didn’t realize she was crying; she just kept shooting because it was the only chance they had.
She didn’t know how many times she fired or if she hit him. She shot blindly, out of raw, frightened instinct.
Then the gun was empty. It only clicked when she squeezed the trigger.
She went dead still, listening. Her ears rang, but she could hear no sound but the sweep of the wind across the pond. The ghostly veils of snow flowed silently across the pond’s surface, shifting, weaving. Of the gunman, she saw nothing, heard nothing.
God, let him be dead, she prayed. God, please let him be dead.
She knew her prayer was evil, but she didn’t care. She realized her eyes burned, her cheeks were wet, her nose was running. She wiped her nose on her jacket sleeve, rubbed her free hand across her cheeks.
She looked at the gun in her hand, held it out, and tried to fire it again. There was only a click. She tried again. Another click. It was truly empty.
If the man was dead, she could take his gun. What her next step after that should be, she didn’t know. She couldn’t think clearly.
Behind her Trace stirred. “Mama?” he said sleepily. “Mama?”
“Shh,” she said softly, automatically, “Laura’s here.” He stirred again and was silent.
She heard no more shooting from the direction of the barn. When had it stopped? The noise had paused before, but never stopped; it had sounded like a war. The silence didn’t seem like peace to her. It seemed like death.
She suppressed a sob. Still holding the empty gun, she cautiously pushed the door open more widely. She would have to see if the man was dead. He’d never fired back He must be dead. She must have hit him. Thank God she’d hit him.
Fearfully she stepped from inside the door and started to inch toward the house he’d disappeared behind.
See How They Run Page 29