by Barr, Nevada
“Doesn’t matter,” Anna said. “He’ll probably shoot you on sight.”
“See that he doesn’t.”
Anna turned to go see if Reg was coming their direction.
“Wait,” Heath said. “Cross my ankles so I look casual, and hand me that cigarette.” She pointed to the disreputable-looking cigarette in the folds of Jimmy’s coat.
Anna did as she was told, then threw the coat behind the tree where it was out of sight.
“Go,” Heath said.
Holding her rotten arm with the one in slightly better shape, Anna trotted the few yards to the edge of the clearing. Reg, his Walther swinging in short arcs like the cane of a blind man searching for obstacles, was walking warily toward the burned plane. The sun was well and truly up. Autumn sunlight, rich and warm as clarified butter, poured into the clearing.
“Nothing,” Reg shouted to the dude.
“Check out the tree line,” the dude called back. He put the Colt in the waistband of his pants. Rifle at his shoulder, he watched Reg and the trees through the site.
He did know Anna existed. He was using Reg as bait to draw her out.
Reg circled the rubble, all that remained of the Cessna, and walked in halting baby steps toward Anna. As he closed the distance, Anna slipped back to Heath.
“It’s now or never,” she whispered. “Wait until I’m set.”
The only chunk of anything remotely solid that she could wield with one arm was a pine branch three feet long and slightly bigger around than her wrist. Rot had set in. Like as not, it would shatter on impact, but it might suffice to give her the time she needed to get his gun.
Might was such a peevish little word.
Backing behind an old oak where she could see Heath but couldn’t be seen from any other angle, she nodded.
“Hey, Reg,” Heath called softly.
“What the fuck?” Reg said. Anna leaned back until she could just see him through the berry bushes. He’d stopped and was rolling his head around, trying to find where the voice came from. He even searched the heavens in case the gods were calling his name.
“Reg, come over, would you?” Heath asked pleasantly.
Anna marveled at the calm and ease in her voice. The ties had to be cutting off half of her oxygen supply.
“Shit, man,” Reg muttered and crept closer to the bushes, his head forward, his gun leading the way.
“God damn it, stop fucking around and get over here,” Heath said.
The cigarette between her fingers was shaking as if it had a life of its own and struggled to take flight.
Reg stepped into the trees and was gone from Anna’s view. In seconds he would see Heath. He had to come far enough in so Anna could see him and knock his miserable head off his miserable shoulders. She wished she had two good arms. She wished she had a gun. Most of all, she wished she had her pants on. Defending the right and just was hard enough without having to do it wearing nothing but filthy lace panties.
He walked into Anna’s sight line. Heath smiled at him. Raising the cigarette to her lips, she said, “Got a light?”
Reg screamed and bolted.
Anna swung the rotten branch with all her strength.
She struck out. Only empty air remained where once had been a thug.
FIFTY-ONE
The dude had skinned out of his bulky coat and was following Reg’s every move with the rifle. Something beyond the tree line had snagged Reg’s attention, and he’d followed it until he was swallowed by the half-denuded bushes. Leah eyed the Colt in the waistband of the dude’s trousers but could think of no way of getting close to it, except by biting him on his hip pocket.
A scream ripped the fabric of the still morning, a skin-shriveling, bowel-loosening shriek that sounded more animal than man. On the heels of the shriek, Reg burst from cover. Instead of running back toward Leah, Katie, and the dude, he veered left and pelted pell-mell down the old logging road at the end of the clearing.
“Holy smoke,” Leah murmured.
“Wolves?” Katie asked.
“Something put the fear of God in him,” Leah said.
The dude pressed his cheek to the stock of the rifle and pulled the trigger. A blossom of liquid red bloomed from the top of Reg’s skull. He fell in midstride, dead before he struck the ground. With Reg down, a second figure was revealed. Not ten feet beyond where Reg lay was Elizabeth. She was running, not away, but up the old road toward them. Without a change in expression, the dude pumped out the spent round and chambered another, then pressed his cheek to the stock.
Leah toppled onto her side, bunched her legs, and kicked out hard, hitting him in the ankle. The shot went wild.
“Get his gun!” a woman shouted.
Not Heath. Heath was dead. Anna, then. It had to be Anna. Leah had begun to think Anna, like the windigo, was a ghost story told to frighten children on winter nights.
The dude kicked Leah’s shins so hard she was spun halfway around. The intensity of the pain tore a squeak from her throat. A scream wanted out, but she didn’t want to scare Katie any worse than she already was. Fighting through the waves of pain, Leah rolled to her back and sat up. She needed to see what was happening. Planting his feet, the dude again took aim and fired at Elizabeth. In the instant the crack of the bullet hit Leah’s ears, Elizabeth dropped to her knees. Shot, downed like Reg. Leah couldn’t bear so much. She tried to shut out the image.
“She’s taking his gun!” Katie squeaked.
Not shot, just down, Elizabeth was snatching something from Reg’s dead hands. Holding it tightly against her belly, she slipped into the trees.
“Elizabeth got his gun!” Katie crowed.
“Shh,” Leah said, afraid the dude would vent his frustration on her daughter.
He seemed unmoved by this turn of events. Leah remembered hearing that it was hard to hit a target with a pistol at any distance, that even people who shot regularly couldn’t be sure of hitting a bull’s-eye at more than ten yards, or twenty, she couldn’t remember exactly. Maybe the dude didn’t figure a fifteen-year-old girl, scared half out of her mind, was much of a threat.
Without glancing back to see if Leah was planning another ground assault on his ankles, he calmly twisted the end of a tube that was slightly smaller and shorter than the barrel of the gun, and mounted right beneath it. Pulling the tube out, he looked into a hole. Counting his bullets, Leah realized. The only rifle bullets he had must be in the gun. The thugs hadn’t come prepared for an extended ordeal.
He eased the tube back in. Nothing on his face indicated whether he had plenty of ammunition or none. Raising the rifle again, he searched the line of trees and bushes at the edge of the clearing, waiting for Elizabeth to show herself.
Katie was scooting, pulling her rear end along with her heels, moving toward the castoff jacket on the dude’s far side. Leah wanted her to stop, to stay still, to stay safe, but there was no safe anymore. Katie reached the coat and fell over on her side. Leah was afraid to ask what she was doing, if she was cold, or going to take a nap. Katie looked at her. Leah raised her eyebrows in silent questioning. The look Katie returned said something important. Leah hadn’t a clue what it was.
Her daughter began nosing around in the folds of the hunting jacket like a puppy looking for a place to nurse.
“You said your brother died,” Leah said to keep the dude from looking in Katie’s direction.
“That’s right,” the dude replied without stopping his endless scanning.
“Did he die recently?” Leah asked because she couldn’t think of anything cleverer.
“He died on the sixteenth of July fourteen years ago.”
The sixteenth of July was Leah and Gerald’s wedding anniversary. Fourteen years. Michael had died on their wedding day.
Katie found whatever it was she was looking for. Her nose was burrowing into the checkered wool, into a pocket. Working her jaws, she bit at something.
“Suicide.” The realization came to Leah like a pun
ch in the gut. “Michael committed suicide.” Gerald hadn’t bought Michael out, or cheated him. Michael committed suicide because Gerald dumped him. Gerald had inherited Michael’s half of the business when he died.
“That’s right,” the dude said.
Using her teeth, Katie tugged whatever she’d been nipping at from the dude’s coat. The pilot’s satellite phone. She pressed her nose on the bottom and the screen lit up. She pressed her nose on an icon and numbers took over the screen. Poking with her nose, she brought up a nine.
Leah stopped talking, stopped breathing.
And a one.
Silence was a mistake. It brought the dude’s head around. His boot struck Katie on the side of the face. Her head snapped back, and she fell over without uttering a sound. Dead to the world. Or dead. Another swift kick, and the phone went sailing out into the weeds.
The dude tucked the rifle beneath his arm, pulled the Colt from his waistband, and pointed the barrel at Katie’s temple. “I don’t need you both,” he said flatly.
FIFTY-TWO
“What are you doing here?” Heath demanded of her gasping daughter.
“You guys tricked me!” Elizabeth accused. “You were never going to do nothing.”
“Give me the gun,” Anna said.
“I got about a quarter of a mile before I figured it out. I can’t believe you did this! You lied to me! You wanted me out of the way.”
“Of course I want you out of the way,” Heath hissed. “Now get out of the way. Go!”
“Give me the gun,” Anna said.
Elizabeth held out the Walther. Anna took it. “Hold out your hand,” she ordered. Elizabeth held her hand out palm up. Anna released the clip into E’s palm. Four bullets remained. “Shove it back in the butt of the pistol until it clicks.” Taking the gun gingerly from Anna, Elizabeth clicked the magazine into place, then handed it back.
Armed, Anna walked toward the clearing.
The dude had his back to her. As she watched, he took the Colt from the waistband of his pants and pointed it at Katie, lying motionless at his feet. Leah was talking fast, her face contorted with the effort. Anna couldn’t hear the words.
This was the only shot she would get. Resting her wrist on a branch, Anna steadied the gun, took careful aim, then fired. The recoil jerked her hand high and sent shock waves through her damaged arm. Vision grayed out. In this fog, she thought she saw the dude spin, the pistol and rifle flying away from his body.
Gray slid toward black, and Anna slid to her knees.
Elizabeth was beside her. “He’s down,” she whispered. “He’s down, but he’s not dead.”
Anna tried to raise the hand with the gun and managed a couple of inches. “Shoot him again,” she said.
“I can’t,” Elizabeth said. “I’ve never even held a gun. You have to get up. You have to wake up.”
Anna felt hands tugging on her good arm. She tried to remember where her feet were and failed. “Just point and click,” she said.
“Get up! You shot him in the shoulder, it looks like. The dude is on his feet. He’s moving. He’s going to get his gun. The pistol, I think.”
“Shoot at him,” Anna murmured.
“I can’t! I might hit Leah or Katie.”
“Shoot in the air. Anything. Scare him.”
Elizabeth took the gun from Anna’s hand. What seemed an interminable time passed. Still on her knees Anna lifted her head to see Elizabeth, both hands on the pistol grip, barrel pointed toward the sky. The girl’s eyes were squeezed tightly shut and her mouth thinned to a snaky line.
“Pull the trigger,” Anna pleaded.
There was a resounding crack as Elizabeth fired into the air. Anna could smell the gunpowder, feel the sound waves crashing around inside her skull.
“It worked!” Elizabeth whispered. “He’s down on the ground again. Afraid he’ll get shot. He’s still crawling, though.”
“Get me up now,” Anna said. “I can see again.”
FIFTY-THREE
A second shot. The dude fell. Leah hoped he was dead. He wasn’t. He was moving. The second bullet hadn’t hit him. He had dropped to the ground to make a smaller target. For a wasted second or two, she waited for a third shot, waited for Elizabeth or Anna or whoever had the gun to shoot the dude again.
Withering silence filled her ears. Reg had been firing off at anything that moved. Maybe two bullets were all that remained in his gun. His gun was the kind with a clip—magazine—Leah knew. Even if Reg had a second magazine, Elizabeth hadn’t had time to find it.
Katie wasn’t moving. The dude was. His breath came in short staccato puffs. Despite the lack of gunfire, he wasn’t trying to get to his feet. Leah wasn’t sure he could.
“You have been shot,” she told him. “You are dying.” She had read once that people could die of nonlethal bullet wounds if they believed the wound was fatal.
The dude was not people. He kept crawling toward where the pistol had been flung when he was shot.
Rolling and squirming, Leah moved over the ground like a sidewinder over desert sand. She reached the pistol before the dude did. Swinging her legs, she struck it with her bound feet. It skittered a few yards farther from the dude’s grasp.
“You have been shot,” she repeated. “You are going to die.”
The dude crept forward.
“No,” she said. “No. No.” Working her legs like a jackhammer, Leah pounded his side with each word. Ignoring her onslaught, he crawled inexorably after the gun. Leah flopped to her side, trying to keep his body within striking distance. Her feet lashed out, hitting dirt and grass, knocking it into his eyes.
Eyes half closed, he crawled on, never looking at her. Bright red blood, lots of it, slimed the dying yellow grass in his wake. “You are losing too much blood. Quarts. Gallons. Liters,” she added, because he was from Canada. If she could keep him crawling he might run out of blood before he could kill her, or at least before he could shoot Katie.
To keep her legs at the right angle to kick, she had to stay on one hip, crushing the hands tied behind her back. Once more she managed to hit the Colt, knocking it another few feet. Twice she landed body blows, a shoulder, his ribs. Air gusted from his lungs in a grunt, but he didn’t slow down.
Then she was kicking air. He was out of her reach. Hunching and flinging herself, she made a futile effort to catch up. What little strength she’d had was used up. She could barely draw up her knees, let alone kick out with any damaging force.
Gulping air, sweat pouring into her eyes, she stopped. Her flopping had turned her around. The dude was no longer in her field of vision. Katie was. She lay exactly as she’d fallen after the dude’s boot struck the side of her head. Her eyes were closed.
Craning her neck, Leah squirmed around until she laid eyes on the dude. He was between her and the morning sun. Eyes full of dust and sweat, he was a humanoid shadow in stark and splintering light. A man of shadow, a black hallowed fallen angel. As she blinked away the illusion, the dude, fighting gravity, dizziness, or pain, struggled to one knee. The Colt was in his hand. All Leah could do was watch. She hadn’t even the wherewithal to pray.
Propping his right elbow on his thigh, he made a cradle of his right hand, then placed his left forearm in it, steadying his gun hand. Unwavering, the bore of the pistol pointed between Leah’s eyes.
“Charlie,” Leah gasped in sudden remembering. “Charlie.”
His colorless eyes clouded. Confusion? Maybe fury? Or memory.
“Michael called you Charlie,” Leah said.
“Brother Charlie. He called me Brother Charlie.” He thumbed back the hammer.
Beyond him, over his shoulder, Leah saw what she believed at first to be a trauma-induced hallucination. A woman with no eyebrows or eyelashes, with a frizzled mass around her face that looked more like staghorn fern than hair, was walking toward them. The woman wore a red tank top, bright turquoise lace panties, and a pair of shapeless dilapidated bedroom slippers. Encrusted with dried
blood, her left arm hung lifeless at her side. A single thread of ruby red ran through the black to end in a teardrop on the tip of her forefinger.
In her right hand was Reg’s pewter-colored pistol.
“Anna?” she whispered.
The dude turned to look.
Anna shot him center mass. The force of the bullet knocked him over. The thump of his head on the ground was palpable. Keeping the gun trained on him, Anna walked up beside him. With the side of her foot, she booted his Colt out of reach of his lax fingers.
“Is Katie dead?” she asked, staring down at the dude’s face.
“I don’t know,” Leah replied. She didn’t want to know she was, and was desperate to know she wasn’t. There was no courage left in the middle to ask. “Is the dude dead?” she asked instead.
“I don’t know,” Anna said, “and I’m not going to get within reach to find out. Is there any food left? I’m starving.”
The dude’s eyes opened. “Mrs. Hendricks?” he whispered.
“I’m here,” Leah said. She sounded nice, caring, like the beloved sister at the bedside of a dying man. She didn’t know why she sounded that way. Too many movies, perhaps. Maybe watching a man dying brought out the best in people.
“Building fund,” he whispered. “Chapel of the Virgin at the sister house of Marie-Reine-du-Monde. See they get it. Gerald owes him. A suicide. Been in purgatory for fourteen years.” Each word was formed separately and pushed up from somewhere deep inside. Blood frothed pink at the corners of his mouth.
“You think you can bribe the Virgin Mary to spring somebody from purgatory?” Anna asked.
Obviously watching a man dying did not bring out the best in everyone.
“I. Never. Met. A woman who—” Weak coughing stopped his words. More blood trickled from the corners of his mouth. “Didn’t want me to buy her a house,” he finished in a rush of breath.
“I will,” Leah heard herself saying. It was true, she would. Not for the dude—Charlie—but for Michael.
“Good,” the dude whispered. His eyes rolled until they focused on Anna, where she stood over him with Reg’s gun. “You were here, always.”