I whisper to Liz, “Go upstairs. All the way down the hall. The window is shot out and there’s a rifle. You might be able to see the shooter.”
She nods and wriggles across the floor. Gunshots crash through the house, concentrated on the bottom floor. The fire is a steady patter, a shot every couple of seconds.
“I’m going to the kitchen,” I say. “There’s two shooters on that side.”
“She stole your music!” Liz says.
She ascends the stairs in a quick burst and her footsteps echo from the hallway. I grab the rifle beside the window and with all the speed I can muster, cross to the kitchen. Bullets tear through the house, but only through the windows. I stop partway and listen. Lead rips through plaster in the middle of the house, and shatters picture frames.
I peer over the windowsill. I’ve got one shooter at the pasture alternating shots through each downstairs window. Sounds like a pistol. The other shots from out front are difficult to distinguish, but it seems they’re not coming inside the house. Like the other fellow is shooting into the walls.
Upstairs, Liz fires a rifle. She follows up with several more and screams, “I missed and he’s moving around the front!”
I shift, place my back to the fireplace, where the stones will protect me from fire originating on the other side of the house.
The pistol shots from out front seem to get closer. The patter is steady, and then the loud bangs stop and it is just the rifle from the pasture that keeps hitting the outside walls. Maybe the one with the pistol is reloading. I shift to my right and see a muzzle flash in the pasture. Hear the bullet strike the side of the house to my left. Though the moonlight is strong I can’t make out any people. I approach the window, rest the muzzle on the splintered wood and wait for the next flash.
There!
I zero on it, and when the next flash comes, it is perfectly aligned with my rifle barrel.
Fuck him.
I duck and a bullet zips by me. A pistol shot from twenty feet away. Upstairs, Liz fires again and after a quick pause, again. She rattles down the stairs.
“I got him,” she says. “I’m sure I got him.”
“Stand back!”
Another pistol shot comes through the window.
“Get back! He’s right outside.”
She drops to the floor and approaches me.
“There’s time for you to go,” I say. “You can make it now. Go downstairs. Take the snowmobile and blast through the door.”
“You’ve been watching too many movies.”
“What are movies?”
She punches my good arm and I make out a smile on her half-lit face.
“I’ll stick around,” she says.
I slide across the kitchen floor, pulling with one good arm, kicking with one good leg. At the steps I sit and then work my way into the darkness, taking the first few steps on my behind. I grab a candle and a book of matches and Liz Sunday is right behind me. She swings the door closed and we’re in total darkness until I strike a match.
I hold the flame to the candle and she finds another and tilts its wick to my flame. I climb to my feet and descend. At the bottom I say, “Take the snowmobile. Blast through the door. He’ll think we’ve both gone, and I’ll surprise him from down here.”
“Whatever you do is going to work,” Liz says.
“Just do it for me!”
“You still don’t understand about Gwen?”
“What?”
“She stole your music. She died for you.”
“For me? What?”
“In your place.”
Liz rests her candle on its side on a shelf and I see what she doesn’t—a can of black powder a few inches away. I rush to her as the dust on the table ignites in a flash that leaves me half blind.
“Are you all right?”
“What was that?” she says, groping me. “I’m blind.”
“Gunpowder. Can you see? Now?”
“It was the flash. Thank God. Gunpowder?”
“The man who lived here reloaded his rifle shells. You lit powder that must have spilled on the table.”
I move the candle closer and she reads the label on the can of black powder. She looks at me, and then past me.
“Shit!” she says. “Put it out!”
She snuffs her candle and knocks mine from my hand. She shoves me aside. A bullet shatters through a window high on the basement wall and smashes into the reloading station. A second and third shot follows. I can barely see in the shadows.
Liz points her rifle at the window and blasts through it. Works the lever and fires again. I move to the end of the table and gather all my strength to topple it forward.
“Go now,” I whisper. “Blast through the door. He’ll think we’re both gone. Go—while there’s time!”
I hear her snowmobile suit zip-zip to me. She feels for my shoulders and my arms and places her rifle in my hand. “There’s two shots left. One in the chamber. The safety is off. If I don’t hear this gun go off within five minutes, I’m coming back.”
She feels for my face and pecks her lips to my cheek.
* * *
Guinevere was beyond shivering. Her foot was numb and the cold that blew through her clothes had long ago frozen her goose pimples solid. Even her eyebrows were hard, and when she squinted against the arctic wind her face remained stiff until she pressed her cheeks back to normal with her palms.
Gale limped from the wound he’d received at her father’s hand; she’d watched Burt hurl the knife, she’d seen it glint as it tumbled end over end until it stuck in Gale. So many times during the previous night she’d closed her eyes only to see Gale’s face staring into death and to hear the bullfrog dirge—croaking tunes that recalled the smell of rotten earth.
She’d thought Gale’s life would end and had closed her eyes. Then she’d seen her father’s face on an azure field and immediately cast about the loft for a weapon. She found the pitchfork and somewhere deep within found the strength to hurl it. She hurried down the ladder, wearing only one shoe, and shivered at the sight of her tormenter’s dead eyes, and the knowledge that at this moment heaven was rejecting him.
Gale would survive!
But on the long march across the field she stopped walking into the driving wind, and turned her back against the stinging ice pellets, and again she saw Gale’s face. Somewhere within the shrieking storm was the plaintive moan of the frogs.
It was remarkable that he was beside her and didn’t know another part of him was this very moment staring into the face of death…but his eyes angled upward, and Gwen realized this might be her only opportunity to see the face of God, because Gale might be the only man clean enough to deserve a place in heaven. She swiveled inside her mind’s eye and the azure field brightened until it was no different than staring into a sunny blizzard.
Was that God?
She looked farther and the whiteness intensified, almost becoming heat she could feel through her bones; she dared farther and farther and the heat burned. She fell to her knees and the snow was warm and wet; she raised her hands to shield her eyes but it was no good—the light was within. She searched the glory until her heart juddered and her lungs refused to expand and contract, farther still until she couldn’t hold a thought together, couldn’t conceive of one word to follow another.
Where? She thought. Where? She continued and the brightness faded. Still moving, fading. The heat ended and she wanted to go back and explore the warmth, but she sensed the drawing of another face and she drove farther from the Godhead until the bullfrogs started to groan and she saw, staring back through her, Guinevere Haudesert.
She saw herself and it was startling like electricity. She heard the notes, the bullfrogs. On another plane she contemplated death with certainty; indeed she stared into her maker. Gwen searched her other face for a sign and her heart quickened when she detected a trace of smile, a flinty mirth in the corner of her eye. Unlike her grandfather, grandmother, grocery man, and B
urt—unlike all of them—she would go someplace nice.
Only she and Gale.
Gwen tried to find the place in her mind where this very moment her other self beheld God. Someplace within her must burn from seeing Him, but no place was warm. Now that she had looked farther to the left and found herself, she was again aware of the driving snow and ice and that she stood ankle-deep in coldness. The disparity was that between black and a rainbow; between nil and love. This world was pain and confusion and embarrassment and sin, and the next was so pure it burned, so loving it attracted her deeper and deeper until she wanted to forget herself and dive in, and merge and finally be stolen from endless night.
“Gwen?” Gale said.
She left her eyes closed for another moment, and soaked in the truth. She may never see these things again.
“We have to hurry,” Gale said. “If you can hang in there, we’ll be to the forest soon. We’ll find cover. I’ll build a fire. Gwen, please, stay with me. Open your eyes, baby.”
Gwen opened her eyes. Wind assailed her. Ice. Snow. Cold. Again she was numb, and tired.
“Come on, baby,” Gale said. “I got you. I’ll take care of you.”
She righted herself with her arms and hands in the snow. Took Gale’s hand, and faced the wind. The forest was ahead. Gale’s voice faded. She’d seen God. On one side of Him was Gale, and on the other was she, and everything was clear. They would not be together long.
* * *
Gwen’s gaze fell to Gale’s boot print. Drifts had accumulated in the lee side of a windrow of brush. They had reached the edge of the field and now entered an obstacle course of ice-covered logs and stumps, half-buried in icy waves of snow. She dropped her foot into Gale’s boot print the way she might drop a frozen fish into a bucket.
Gale plodded onward. His ruddy ears shone through locks of hair that seemed like frozen tufts of mud. If she closed her eyes, she would see Gale’s other face, the one that communed with the Almighty. Looking beyond, she would glimpse purity—and on the other side she would see a version of herself in the same contemplative pose as Gale.
Earlier, she’d yanked the knife from Gale’s leg and his eyes were full of water and when he’d regained his feet, he spun in circles like a rain dance, hopping and slipping, and she’d tucked the knife into her pocket with the blade up in the air.
Now she pulled out the knife and used one hand to wrap the other around the haft.
Gwen followed deeper into the woods. They neared a copse of ponderosa where the snow on the ground was lighter. Gwen stopped and Gale continued. She pressed the tip of the blade to her ribs until the point homed on a trough between bones. She angled the handle to point the blade at the center of her core, and inhaled. Closed her eyes.
The bullfrog song came. Gale looked through her into the deity beyond. She studied Gale’s face and though he couldn’t see her, she desperately wanted to communicate with this Gale, the one who would understand what she was about to do. She would tell him she hadn’t loved him at first, but it was her fault. And that he was so pure she’d fallen in love with him in spite of the ugliness Burt had planted in her heart. This Gale would understand she was saving him and her choice wasn’t merely selfish. That it was all good, that everything was white, that coldness and ice melted in the face of purity.
She had no voice for this Gale. He stayed where he was, imperturbable, looking into deity without needing to rush headlong into it. He was stronger than she. That was why he could stay a while longer, and why he would someday understand she had no strength to remain.
She opened her eyes and Gale was yards ahead. She dropped the knife to her side, hid it in her pocket. “Gale!”
He whirled to her, raced back. “Let me help,” he said.
“I love you. I just wanted to say that.”
“I love you,” he said. “Soon we’ll be at a rock ledge where I built a fire last night. I’ll carry you.” He stepped to her.
“No. I’m fine.”
“You’re shivering. Your lips are blue.”
“So are yours. Hurry. I’ll follow.”
He nodded, holding her eye. “Okay. Hurry.”
“And Gale? I love you. Remember.”
She followed to where Gale had spent the night. He gathered wood.
She brought the blade to her ribs. Nestled the point below her breast where it would glide between the bones. Closed her eyes and looked into the other Gale’s face one last time before slipping beyond him, around, toward the white heat and purity. She turned and as Godhead grew closer she wilted under the glare. It was agony and it was magnetic. Farther, farther. Hotter. Up and down were gone. Left and right didn’t exist. Everything in all of time and space was inside her. Deity was a crucible, and she was within it, burned pure. Whiteness blinded every dimension of her being; she was agony and pleasure; she writhed and her skin leaped, her heart soared and in a vague way she knew she had fallen onto the knife. Some other part of her let go. Some other part was sticky and red and rapidly freezing—but not Guinevere Haudesert.
She saw Gale one last time and whispered.
* * *
I watched the firefight. I remember that much. Odum did like I thought—came in from three sides, totally exposed, like an idiot.
I rushed as best I could on old legs in deep snow. I remember that. Sager went down first, and I couldn’t see Travis. Must have happened quick, because inside of two minutes it was just Odum firing into the basement, and then taking off around the back. I set off at a run, right up the driveway.
And next I know, my legs don’t work and my chest is inside a table vise. Everything’s black and my face is numb from snow. I’m thinking of Burt, and Gwen, and Margot, and the vagabond from 1951. I’m thinking of bullets and numb skin, wondering if this is the end of Sheriff Bittersmith—couldn’t even drag his sorry ass to the fight.
I’ll be damned.
But I can’t move.
* * *
Everything is black. I look out the window for the last shooter, but it’s dark outside, too. The pistol fire has stopped.
In a moment the snowmobile rocks as Liz mounts it and the springs adjust to her weight. The key clicks and there’s a mild knocking sound as she sets the starter cord.
She yanks and the motor surges to life. The headlight fills the basement and in a second the air is smoky with exhaust. Liz revs high while holding the brake, getting the engine hot. I point the rifle at the window. The din is like holding a chainsaw to your ear; the metallic rattle penetrates skull bones and vibrates the brain. Finally—all this has taken two seconds—she releases the brake. The engine screams bloody murder and the snowmobile darts across the basement floor, up the ramp, and blasts through the sloped wall door.
A series of flashes appear as the snowmobile becomes a receding airborne shadow—flashes that carry sharp reports with them.
Our third adversary was waiting. The snowmobile flies following the cant of the ramp, and smashes the man on the downward slope of the yard.
I struggle to the ramp and hold the rifle barrel before me as I climb out of the basement.
A man lies crumpled in the snowmobile’s tracks. His pistol is pressed to his chest. He’s breathing. On either side of him is the door, ripped in two by the sled’s nose. Liz races across the lake without letting up and then turns left. As the headlight begins to point back to the house, her progress stops. She waits and her snowmobile engine idles.
I step to the man’s feet and aim at his head.
“I’m sheriff,” he whispers.
I take the pistol from his hand. He bleeds from his mouth and his body begins to shake. I’ve seen enough death moments to recognize his. “Where’s Bittersmith?”
“He’s done. Last day.”
“Yours too.”
* * *
I sit at the edge of the basement entrance on the cement block wall. Liz races closer on the snowmobile.
She died in your place…
I should have been ki
lled so many times. Which death did Gwen take for me?
Liz stops at the lake bank, just off the ice. The motor dies and she sits there, waiting.
Only now in the silence does everything make sense. Gwen saw my face with the music and convinced herself she could save me by dying. Only now does the uncertain feeling I’ve had all along—not knowing if I loved her because she needed my protection, or if I loved her because of her character—resolve. I’ve never known anyone so beautiful.
And only now do I fathom the depth of my hatred for Burt Haudesert. He thought invading Gwen’s bed was an inconsequential thing, but he stole her entire life.
Liz walks toward me, rifle in hand. I wave. I’d like to redirect my thoughts back to Gwen, but Bittersmith is still out there. He’ll come to me, or I’ll go to him.
“This was the new sheriff. He’s dead,” I say. “You can go home.”
When she is a few feet away, she says, “Now let me tell you my story.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Liz Sunday is a sprightly character, brimming with anger; she moves like a bowed whipsaw and her voice crackles like gunfire. She begins talking as we circle the house, me gimping and her gesticulating, more and more overcome by her own audacity.
“Gwen and I were the same,” she says. “The same things happened to us, and some to me were worse. My mother ran off when I was three, and…”
I parse her excited language while she bends to her brother’s corpse.
“You want to get his other foot?” she says.
I stoop and lift, fold his ankle in the crook of my elbow. Together we heave him toward the house.
“We were friends and all,” Liz says. “Gwen told me about the music, and why it started.”
Her brother is still warm, and a red trail marks the first few feet of his passage through the snow. It quickly fades and though we are dragging a bloody corpse the snow is virgin white, something so remarkable that I cannot get my mind around it. Liz is talking still, mincing around confessing that her father raped her and that is what bound her and Gwen together.
Am I losing my mind? Have I heard all this before?
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