Cold Desert Sky

by Rod Reynolds

  There was a shout right behind me. I looked around, saw Landell prone on the backseat, hysterical. I darted back there in a crouch and yanked his door. I heard more gunfire.

  He snapped his head up. ‘Get me out, get me out—’

  I grabbed his shirt and dragged him off the seat into the footwell. ‘Stay low.’ I slammed the door and hunkered down for cover, looking around again to follow the women’s paths. The car in motion was freewheeling backwards slowly, its driver collapsed against the steering column, the side window blown away. I couldn’t see Lang. The car rolled into a boulder and stopped.

  Two of the women had taken off behind the house and were out of sight. Another was breaking for the desert to the left of the ranch, almost at the furthest reach of the light field it gave off. She had on a black dress and her hair was pinned – so out of place it would have been absurd another time. I looked around, couldn’t see the fourth.

  I broke cover and ran in a crouch after the one I could see. Another burst of gunfire came from the porch and was returned. In my peripheral vision I saw Lang circling around towards the Pontiac still parked out front, snapping a shot off.

  I ran full pelt. The woman had a fifty yard start on me. I called out to her but my voice was lost in the commotion. But she was moving slowly and I realised she’d kicked her heels off and was barefoot. It took me no time to close her down. Coming near, I called out again; she glanced around, flashing me the snapshot of a terrified face, and darted right.

  I caught her up and reached for her arm. She screamed and whirled around to slap at me. I wrapped her arms up and eased her slowly to the ground. She looked nothing like Nancy Hill.

  ‘You’re safe. I’m with the sheriff, I’m here to help.’

  Her eyes were two harsh spotlights and she was shaking her head like crazy.

  ‘Ma’am, listen to me.’ I let her go. ‘I’m with the sheriff, we came to help.’

  She stared at me in shock. There was a small rocky outcrop to our left. I pointed to it. ‘I want you to hide behind there until it’s safe. I’ll come get you, I swear.’ I got to my knees. ‘Do you know Nancy Hill?’

  Her head went still but she said nothing. I realised she was staring at the gun in my hand. I swiped it away behind my back. ‘Ma’am? Nancy Hill?’

  She said nothing, still staring. I planted my hand on the floor and pushed myself to my feet. I glanced back to the ranch. Lang was on one knee taking cover behind the Pontiac, pinned down by the gunman on the porch he was preventing from getting to it.

  I pointed to the rocks again. ‘Ma’am, please, listen to me, I have to go. Wait there, I’ll be back for you.’ Then I took off towards the ranch.

  I was coming at it from the side. As I ran, a column of light erupted from the rear of the building, illuminating another car stashed there. Two figures emerged from the house, one manhandling the other. He was heavyset, suited. Familiar—

  Moe Rosenberg.

  I raised my gun but didn’t fire, the second shape a woman. The light slid away again with a clap – a sprung door snapping shut. Rosenberg opened the car and tossed the woman inside.

  I angled towards them, the welt on Lizzie’s cheek burning in my mind.

  Out front, a man came haring off the far side of the porch, sprinting across the turnaround towards Lang’s cruiser. He turned his face in my direction, spraying shots at Lang as he ran. I got a glimpse and saw it was Vincent Gilardino.

  Lang took aim and fired. Gilardino spun and crashed to the ground. Lang didn’t see the other gunman had shifted position to get an angle on him.

  ‘LANG—’

  I was too far away. The man fired and Lang slumped forward.

  I whipped my gun up and fired twice. The gunman glanced at me over his shoulder and ducked around the Pontiac, firing behind himself without looking.

  The lights on Rosenberg’s car came on. I was twenty yards distant. He gunned the engine and took off, wheeling around the side of the house.

  Lang was prostrate, motionless.

  Rosenberg’s car trundled across the ground towards the front of the ranch, passing between my position and where Lang was lying. I started running again, chasing it, checking for the gunman by the Pontiac as I went. I couldn’t see him.

  I closed the gap until Rosenberg made it to the turnaround, the flattened ground allowing him to speed up. He steered for the road out. I got my gun up and fired at his back wheels, squeezing the trigger again and again.

  The back half of Lang’s cruiser was blocking the narrow track. Rosenberg had no option; he tried to swerve around it but lost control because of the banking and veered off the roadway. His car careened into the scrub, bouncing over the rocks and dirt until it crashed into a dip. The impact left the car upended, the rear wheels hanging in the air, still turning.

  I kept running towards him, glancing back to check for the other gunman but seeing no sign. I slowed to a jog as I came close, cutting around to the driver’s side on rubber legs. The motor was still running.

  I walked slowly in a diagonal, gun trained on the car. In a year, from never having fired one out of uniform to this. There was a creak and a scratching sound from inside. I stopped, waited. I heard a door open on the other side and darted around the back end to see.

  The woman was scrambling out of the car feet first. I stopped on the edge of the dip and the rest of her came into view as she lowered herself gently to the ground. She looked up, saw me and froze. It was dark and she had blood on her face but I recognised her anyway.

  ‘Miss Hill—’ I scrambled down the bank of the hollow, losing my footing and slipping. ‘Nancy—’

  She was sliding along the side of the car, moving away, but she stopped when she heard her name.

  ‘Nancy …’ I walked up to her slowly and just looked. The right side of her face was marked with blood, a wound I couldn’t see.

  She was trembling. ‘Please—Please …’

  I held my hands up to show I meant no harm, a lightness filling my chest. ‘I’m not here to hurt you, I swear it.’

  She pressed herself back against the car.

  ‘I’m from Los Angeles, I’ve been looking for you. I’ve come to take you home.’

  She lifted one arm to keep me back. Inside the wreck, Moe Rosenberg was draped over the steering wheel, pitched there by the impact, his forehead against the shattered windscreen. He was stirring and he let out a rough moan.

  I could see the noise spooked her. She turned to look and then barged into me trying to get away from the car. I held her just long enough to check no one was on the bank above and then let her get clear. She stopped and turned around after a few paces, uncertain. There was a sound in the distance, back towards the ranch, another car crunching over the dirt. She heard it too and froze.

  ‘Wait there,’ I said.

  I clawed my way up the side and looked over the top. I got there in time to see the Pontiac smash into the back of Lang’s cruiser, shunting it out of the way before carrying on up the track, the remaining gunman making his getaway. I watched to make sure he didn’t stop or double back, but he had the only things he wanted – an escape route and a chance to distance himself from the night’s wreckage.

  I slid down again, hit bottom and held my palms out again to show I wasn’t coming any closer. ‘Nancy, how many men were in the ranch?’

  Her gaze shifted from me to the upturned car and back again. ‘Four. I only saw four.’

  Three cars for four men. Could be, could be there were more, still haunting the shadows.

  I offered my hand to help her up the slope.

  She tensed but made no movement towards or away from me. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name’s Charlie Yates, I’m a reporter. I know how strange this must be, but I’ve spoken to your mother, she’s desperate to see you. Please, I came here with the sheriff.’

  She fixed me with a look. ‘You can’t make me go home.’

  I didn’t know what to say to that. A movement insi
de the ruined car drew my attention and I ducked low to see. Rosenberg had righted himself and was trying to pick his way over to the open passenger door, his hand and one knee planted on the dashboard. Nancy Hill skittered back when she saw he was in motion.

  I set myself in the doorway and aimed at his head. He flicked his eyes up to look at me, his necktie dangling.

  ‘Gilardino’s shot. So’s the wheelman. Your last gun just took off. Only you left now.’

  Blood was dripping from a gash on his forehead. ‘You certain of that?’

  But the face he showed wasn’t riding the same rails as his words; defiance out of habit. I had the feeling Nancy Hill’s numbers were right. ‘Who killed Diana Desjardins?’

  He moved his lips, but Nancy spoke first from behind me. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Diana Desjardins. Julie. Who killed her?’

  ‘He did.’ She pointed, her voice hollow. ‘He did. He …’

  I looked back at him. ‘Why?’

  He jerked his hand forward to shift his weight, still coming. ‘Let me out of here.’

  I shook my head. ‘You son of a bitch.’

  He closed his eyes and when he opened them again, he moistened his lips, gingerly. ‘I can give you Ben. Let me out.’

  I stared at him a second, a spasm in my chest as anger and adrenaline went to work on me. ‘Make peace with yourself before I get back.’ I stepped away and closed the misshapen door as far as it would go.

  ‘Come on.’ I started up the bank and waved for Nancy Hill to come too.

  ‘Where’re you going? You can’t leave him—’

  ‘He’ll keep, I need to go to the sheriff.’

  I pulled myself up the slope, pausing a split second at the top to check the scene. The ranch dominated its scrap of desert, its lights glaring out into the night like an abandoned ship on the ocean. Gilardino lay where he’d fallen. So did Lang.

  Nancy was following. I reached down to help her over the lip of the bank and then set off towards Lang at a run, pulling her along with me, not wanting to expose her to any more horror but not wanting to let her out of my sight either.

  When we were ten yards short of Lang, I stopped and told her to hold back. She was staring at him, no expression on her face. I stripped off my battered suit jacket and draped it around her shoulders. ‘Stay low, keep your eyes open, holler if you see anything at all.’

  I left her there and covered the rest of the ground to Lang. He was face down, the collar of his shirt soaked with blood on one side. I put a hand to his neck and felt a weak pulse. ‘Lang? Lang, can you hear me?’

  He was unconscious. I called back to Nancy Hill. ‘Where’s the telephone?’

  She shook her head, shivering violently now as cold and shock took hold.

  ‘Nancy?’

  But before she could reply I picked up on another sound. A quiet rumbling; distant but getting louder. It seemed to come not from one point but from the whole length of the horizon. I looked towards the crest of the incline we’d come over, saw the shadow of a dust cloud obscuring the stars as it drifted into the sky. A car barrelling towards us.

  Scratch that – looking hard, I could make out two. The gunman coming back. With reinforcements. Should’ve run when you had the chance—

  I looked over to Lang’s cruiser, sitting on the side of the track at a drunken angle. It offered no obstacle to the incoming cars now. I weighed if I could get to it in time. A snap take – no way of knowing what damage it might have sustained. A bum axle would leave me stranded out there.

  I whirled around in desperation, saw the car with the woman trapped in its trunk, nestled snug against the boulder it’d rolled into. I turned again, remembering the fleeing woman I’d told to hide. I could make out the rocky outcrop but not what lay beyond it, no sign of her from my vantage point. My mind was crumbling.

  I stuffed the pistol into the back of my pants and grabbed Lang under the armpits. I started dragging him towards the cruiser, panic making me doubt my own judgement from just seconds before, but the cars were coming too fast so I switched direction and made for the main door of the ranch. Nancy Hill looked on, unblinking, unmoving.

  I lost my grip and tumbled backwards, landing on my rear end. I hauled myself up, cursing under my breath, in my head railing at the bullshit injustice of it.

  I started again, but after a few paces I lost my hold on him once more, my hands stinging in the cold. I cursed, loud this time, the light from the house so bright it hurt, Nancy Hill rushing over now, grasping his right arm and trying to help, then pulling at my shirt when she couldn’t shift him and telling me we had to get inside. Clawing at me, begging me to move. Me glancing at the outcrop, the hurtling cars, the locked trunk, indecision killing me.

  Rosenberg. A one-word thought crashing through all the others.

  I looked down, saw Lang’s gun in the dirt, a short way from the start of the drag marks his boots had made. I scooped it up and pressed it into Nancy’s hand. ‘Go inside, call for help. Tell them the sheriff’s down, they’ll come quicker. Whatever happens, stay hidden until they arrive. Tell them about the other girls when they do.’

  ‘What about—’

  ‘Go. Just go.’

  I took off towards Rosenberg, old pains in my legs rising up in protest. I made it to the ditch and hurled myself down the side as the lead car sped onto the turnaround. Rosenberg had worked his way out of the wreck. He was a short distance from it, crawling like a bug that needed putting out of its misery.

  I put the gun to his skull. ‘Get up.’

  He stopped still but said nothing.

  ‘The only way you leave here tonight is if I do,’ I said.

  ‘Same for you.’

  I heard the second car tear past us and pull up outside the ranch.

  ‘UP.’

  ‘Get me out and I’ll give you Ben.’

  ‘You played that card already.’

  ‘He’s your enemy, not me. Use your brain.’ His voice was laboured, whittled thin. Trying the same line as Gilardino after he’d shot Trent Bayless – Just a pawn.

  I locked my arm around his throat and forced him upright to his knees.

  He struggled, clawing at my face. ‘There’s things you don’t know—’

  I arched my back to apply more pressure, silencing him, wanting him to feel an ounce of the suffering he’d inflicted. He gurgled, popping spit. I held a moment longer.

  Then I let go. ‘Stand up.’

  He stayed on his knees, coughing. When he caught his breath, he buried his face in his shoulder, wiping his mouth on his suit coat. Then he looked around at me. ‘I’m gonna cut your old lady apart an inch at a time.’

  I almost kicked him in the head. The sound of voices from in front of the house made me remain still, the occupants of one car shouting to the next. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I slipped the magazine out of the pistol, a Colt semi-auto, saw there was one bullet left. I pushed it back into place. An urge to put it in Rosenberg, to have that certainty to take with me wherever I wound up next.

  Knowing I never could. A line I’d drawn back in Hot Springs.

  I crawled up the bank and poised on all fours to peer over. Two cars, four men I could see.

  Something off: neither of them the Pontiac. Two of the men were talking, then the taller one broke off and shouted something towards the house, the wrong direction, words lost in the night. But then he turned and shouted again. ‘YATES?’

  I put my arm on the lip to haul myself over it, seeing the man’s face now.

  ‘YATES?’

  My blood racing, spreading relief and apprehension around my body in equal measure. My finger on the trigger. The words coming even as I was still weighing speaking them. ‘Here. I’m over here.’

  Colt Tanner spotted me and came over at a jog.

  I held the gun by my side and just waited.

  He waved to the others and yelled for them to follow him. I recognised Bryce and Hendricks, a third agent I did
n’t know.

  Tanner made it first. He clasped my shoulder. ‘Are you hurt?’

  I shook my head and waved for the others to go back. ‘By the house, the sheriff is shot but alive. Help him.’

  Tanner motioned over his shoulder for the others to double back as I’d said. There was urgency in his orders.

  I gestured with the gun. ‘Rosenberg’s down there. He’s says he’ll give up Siegel.’

  Tanner’s eyes narrowed. He slipped past me and stopped at the bank, resting his hand on the fender of the upturned car. He shook his head and came back, pointing to the gun in my hand. ‘You have that in his face at the time?’

  ‘No reason you couldn’t do the same. Who would know?’

  He ran his hand over his mouth. ‘You’re some piece of work.’

  I rubbed the back of my neck. ‘How did you find me?’

  He glanced past me, to where the agents were kneeling to attend to Lang now. ‘You leave a trail like a buffalo herd.’

  *

  The scene was little less chaotic for the end of the shooting. Hendricks and the unknown agent worked on Lang, so I gave Bryce everything I could on the man who’d pulled the trigger – five-nine, dark hair, dark suit cut long, slim build, driving a dark green Pontiac. I hadn’t got the plate. We both knew it didn’t matter; chances were the man was halfway to the state line by now, home free if he could make it to Los Angeles. The Sheriff’s Department would drag the county regardless, so better to get the details down now.

  Tanner went straight for Rosenberg, slipping into the ditch and out of sight. Something was turning behind his eyes from the minute he’d shown up, but I didn’t care – I wanted to find the women who’d spilled from the house. I told Bryce about the one hiding behind the outcrop and pleaded with him to go look for her. He agreed and set off, and I ran inside to find Nancy Hill.

  She didn’t respond to my calls from the entryway of the ranch. In the end I went room to room, locating her in a closet in one of the bedrooms upstairs. There were four single beds crammed inside the room, one at an angle across two others, forming a rough triangle to allow the door to be opened, the last against the wall beside me. There were no personal possessions on display. The closet door had a latch for a padlock on the outside, but the lock was missing. Opening it, I found it filled with cocktail dresses and ball gowns, like a child’s dress-up box. Nancy was sitting on the floor, sequinned trains and sparkly hems parted around her shoulders. She looked up but didn’t say anything, turning her eyes back to Lang’s gun in her lap.