Hawke's War

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  I zigzagged between the parked cars as the truck’s rear end slewed. Centrifugal force jerked Torrez’s arm and widened the arc of spraying bullets. Hot lead punched holes in half a dozen vehicles between me and the escaping felons, spiderwebbing windshields and side windows. People dropped like wheat before a scythe. There was no way to tell if they were ducking, like me, or falling with wounds.

  A deputy opened up with his service weapon at the same time Navarro centered the truck in the westbound lane. I raced around the tail end of the white Chevy pickup, close enough to see Navarro behind the wheel, swinging a pistol around in my direction with his right hand. He fired three times over his left bicep as the truck accelerated.

  My .45 came up, the sight picture lining up on his ear. Planting my feet, I fired three fast times. Two of the three missed, but the third caught him at the tip of his shoulder. He dropped the pistol and slumped forward. The angle was such that I no longer had a clear target, so the next best thing to do was empty the magazine into his left front tire. It exploded with a dull pop, wrenching the wheel from Navarro’s hand at the same time Deputy Frank Malone roared up in his cruiser in the open lane and hit the Ford head-on.

  Navarro slammed into the expanding airbag, disappearing from view.

  At that point lawmen appeared from between the stopped cars. With nothing on the right side of the Ford truck but empty desert they opened up with a fusillade. I dropped my empty magazine, slapped in a fresh one, and hurried toward the steaming car at the same time the passenger door on the truck popped open and Torrez slid out, taking cover behind their now well-ventilated pickup. He stuck the machine pistol over the bed and held the trigger down, spraying rounds in still another deadly arc.

  The passenger door to Malone’s cruiser opened and he fought free of his deployed airbag, crawling across the front seat to roll out on my side with a shotgun in his hands. Once outside, he crabbed toward the rear of his cruiser. “What’n hell!!!??”

  I ducked down behind the car and joined him at the rear. “Bad guys.”

  His face was red from the airbag. “No shit!”

  “Driver’s dead, I think. There’s another one.”

  Gunfire rose.

  “I saw him just before we hit.”

  I pointed toward the passenger side of the wrecked truck. “He might pop up over here.”

  “Hope he does.”

  Staying low, we duck-walked behind the cruiser, and I peeked up through the back glass. Thinking himself protected from the deputies’ gunfire by the open passenger door, Torrez was changing magazines beside the truck’s right front fender.

  “Move now!”

  Struggling to insert a fresh magazine in the little machine pistol, Torrez was intent on the weapon when Malone’s 12-gauge joined in with my .45. Torrez dropped to the hot, sandy shoulder.

  I rose and saw Navarro slumped over the steering wheel. “Clear!”

  Ethan and the deputies eased around the truck, not really taking my word for it, but I didn’t blame ’em. I watched Ethan kick the MAC-10 out of the dead man’s reach. The sound of screams and crying filled the silence. The helicopter circled overhead and I realized my side was on fire.

  Holstering my pistol, I felt around to see if I was shot again, but it was only the half-healed wound that had woken up.

  Shaking his head, Ethan joined us beside the wrecked cruiser. “What’n hell was that all about?”

  “There was paper on them yesterday and they saw I’d made ’em.”

  Taking his Stetson off, Ethan wiped the sweat from his forehead with a trembling hand. “Looks like you’re back on the desk again, and I think I’m gonna recommend that Major Parker keeps you there for the rest of the year.”

  “Can I count on you for that?”