The Stake

by Richard Laymon

  “I don’t see him,” Pete said.

  “Think we got him?”

  “I don’t know.” Pete dropped lower, turned around and squatted, seeming to sag against the wall as he stared into the street.

  Larry fumbled fresh cartridges out of his shirt pocket. He started thumbing them into the chambers. The cylinder made quiet clicking sounds as he turned it. Done, he snapped the loading gate shut.

  Pete looked at him. “All set?”

  “For what?”

  “We’re going in, aren’t we?”

  “Are we?”

  “We’re not going anywhere else, I’ll tell you that much. I’m not changing any fuckin‘ tire with Tonto taking potshots at me.”

  “You want us to go in?”

  “That’s the idea.” Pete started duck-walking toward him.

  “I don’t know about this.”

  “What don’t you know?”

  “What if he’s waiting?”

  “If you’re chicken, I’ll go first.”

  “I’m not chicken, but...”

  Pete dropped to his knees, crawled past Larry and eased his head past the doorframe. “I think he’s gone.”

  “If you catch an arrow in the face, Barbara’s gonna kill me.”

  Pete rose slowly until he was standing in the middle of the doorway. Larry turned around and stepped up close beside him. The room was brighter than he’d expected. Light not only poured in from the front door and display window, but also from a smaller window at the rear.

  “Bet he took off out the back,” Pete said.

  “What about over there?”

  Over there was an L-shaped counter with a few bullet holes near its top. Behind it was the closed door of a room that occupied the shop’s right rear quarter.

  “If you’re in here,” Pete said in a loud voice, “show yourself right now.”

  Nothing happened.

  He fired three times, the explosions slamming Larry’s ears as bullets crashed through the counter at knee level.

  “Christ! Did you have to do that?”

  “Yep.” Even as the word left Pete’s lips, he raced at the counter. He vaulted it. His kick sent the door flying open. He rushed into the back room, then came out shaking his head. “Like I said, he beat it out the window.”

  Larry joined up with Pete and they reached the window together.

  He yelled, “Shit!”

  He shoved Pete. The force of the push sent them both stumbling, separating them, and the arrow sizzled between them.

  As he fell to one knee, Larry’s mind held a frozen image of the man he’d seen an instant ago. A man standing in the desert about a hundred feet beyond the back of the building, letting an arrow fly. A savage with wild gray hair, a bushy beard, and a black patch over one eye. Wearing a necklace of garlic cloves, a crucifix that hung in the middle of his chest, an open vest and skirt of gray animal fur, with a knife in the belt at his hip.

  “Did you see that?” Pete asked.

  Getting up, Larry said, “Uriah?”

  “Fuckin‘ wildman of Borneo!”

  They both peered out from the sides of the window.

  The man was running away, hair streaming out behind him, the bow pumping up and down in his right hand, a quiver of arrows and some kind of cloth bag bouncing against his back.

  Pete crouched. He braced his arms on the windowsill and took careful aim.

  “You can’t shoot him in the back!”

  “Watch me.”

  Larry was ready to knock the gun aside, but an image of Bonnie filled his mind. He saw her alive, sleeping in her bed, the weird old man creeping toward her with a hammer and stake.

  Pete fired.

  His bullet kicked up a puff of dust a yard behind the sprinting lunatic.

  His next shot chopped through the bow. The weapon was ripped from the man’s hand, its string flinging the broken ends high, whipping them together.

  “All right!” Pete cried out. “Now we’ve got him!”

  As they climbed out the window, Larry saw him leap and drop out of sight.

  “He’s in the ravine,” Pete said.

  “Yeah.” The ravine. The stream bed where they’d found the old jukebox and the campfire with the remains of the coyote.

  They started walking toward it, Pete reloading.

  “We won’t have to shoot him now,” Larry said.

  “Right. We’ll take him alive, ask a few questions. This’ll be great. We’ll take him to the cops. Man, we’ll be the guys that solved the disappearances.”

  “Yeah,” Larry muttered. He knew he should feel good. They’d come here for Uriah. Pretty soon, they’d find out whether this was him.

  Certainly wasn’t the Uriah of his nightmares.

  Probably him, though.

  The guy who murdered Bonnie and the other two girls.

  They’d have him. Alive. He could tell them everything.

  But Larry didn’t feel good. He felt as if he were being strangled by fear.

  Pete grinned at him. “You look like shit, pardner. You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nothing to be scared of, man. What’s he gonna do, throwarrows at us?”

  “I don’t know. But I don’t like this.”

  “I do. Fantastic!”

  Maybe we won’t be able to find him, Larry thought. This is a guy who eats coyotes down there. Probably knows the ravine like the back of his hand. Maybe has special hiding places.

  Or, once at the bottom, he might’ve taken off running in either direction. By the time we get there, he could be long gone.

  God, I hope so.

  Get him for Bonnie. He killed her. Make him pay.

  When they were thirty or forty feet from the rim of the gap, Pete waved toward the left. “You go that way.”

  “Huh?”

  “We’ll split up and box him in.”

  “Split up? You outa your mind?”

  Halting, Pete scowled at him. “Just do it.”

  “No! If we split up, one of us’ll get nailed. Happens in every shitty splatter film I’ve ever seen.”

  “This ain’t a fuckin‘ movie.”

  “We stick together, and that’s final.”

  Looking disgusted, Pete shook his head. “Okay, okay. Shit.”

  “Besides, if we aren’t together down there...”

  In the corner of Larry’s vision something moved. He jerked his eyes toward the ravine. Glimpsed the head and arm of the one-eyed wildman, the face leering, the arm snapping forward as it hurled a rock. “Watch out!” he shouted.

  Ducking, he looked at Pete.

  Pete ducked as he brought up his revolver. The rock caught the bridge of his nose, knocked his head back and bounced to the side. His hat flew off. He stumbled backward a few steps like an outfielder going for a high fly ball. Blood spilled over his mustache, dribbled into his open mouth and spread down his chin. The gun fell from his hand. He flopped to the ground. The back of his head thumped a flat slab of granite.

  Larry cringed watching all this, as if he could feel the sharp impacts himself.

  Then he remembered Uriah. Or whoever it was.

  He snapped his head sideways.

  The man was gone.

  He dashed for the edge of the ravine.

  I’m gonna kill you, you rotten bastard! his mind shrieked. Look what you did! What’m I gonna tell Barbara? Shit shit shit! You piece of shit, I’m gonna blow your fucking brains all over the desert! Wasn’t enough you had to kill Bonnie, you goddamn fucking lunatic!

  He teetered on the rim and gazed down. The embankment below was steep, cluttered with boulders and scrub brush. But nobody was on it. Nobody was running along the flat bottom of the stream bed.

  “Where are you, you shit!” he yelled.

  Then he was scrambling down, dodging the rocks and bushes in his way, arms waving for balance, digging his heels into gravel, skidding over the hard-packed earth. Halfway down he slipped. His rump pounded the slope. He slid on t
he seat of his jeans, throat going tight and tears filling his eyes. A boulder stopped his descent. He pushed himself up, stepped onto the outcropping, blinked his eyes clear and scanned the area below him.

  No trace of Uriah.

  But a lot of hiding places: boulders, thickets, deep cuts eroded into the walls of the ravine.

  The bastard might be anywhere, he thought.

  Or not even down here at all.

  Instead of heading for the bottom after he threw the rock, he might’ve gone acrossthe slope.

  A chill swept up Larry’s spine. He twisted around.

  Nobody there.

  But he felt exposed, vulnerable.

  Might be anywhere. I’ve gotta get out of here.

  The walnut grips of his revolver felt slippery. He switched the gun to his left hand, rubbed the right dry on a leg of his jeans and wrapped it around the revolver again. Then, with quick glances all around him, he began to climb the embankment.

  Might be anywhere.

  He snapped his head from side to side. He glanced behind him. He squinted at the top. Behind him. To the left. To the right. Whenever he looked one way, he imagined Uriah leaping up from the opposite direction.

  It’s like backing out of a tight space in a parking lot, he thought. A busy lot. Other cars backing out of other spaces.

  Exactly the same.

  You don’t know where to look first.

  I’ll have to remember that and use it sometime, he told himself. Christ, this is no time to think about your damn writing!

  Took my mind off Uriah, though. At least for a while.

  Long enough to get me the rest of the way to the top!

  His head almost even with the rim of the embankment, he felt a great surge of relief.

  You’re not there yet, he told himself. This is when he gets you — when safety’s in easy reach.

  He looked to the sides. He looked back. No Uriah.

  I madeit!

  He chugged for the top.

  Uriah was kneeling beside Pete.

  Holding a stake against the middle of Pete’s chest.

  Swinging his hammer down.

  Thirty-five

  Larry didn’t take aim. No time for that. He pointed and fired.

  The man’s head jerked sideways. Dropping the stake, he grabbed his cheek, glared at Larry with a single, mad eye, twisted on his knees and flung the hammer at him. Larry jumped out of the way. The hammer tumbled by, just missing his shoulder.

  “Freeze!” he shouted.

  Though he aimed his cocked revolver at the wildman, he held fire. His first shot had been lucky. He didn’t want to risk another. Not while his target was kneeling beside Pete.

  But Uriah didn’t freeze.

  He didn’t seem to care that a gun was aimed at him. Nor did he seem to care, anymore, about his wound. Blood spilled down both sides of his shaggy gray beard as he snatched the stake off the ground and leaped up and charged.

  “Stop or I’ll shoot!”

  “Vampire!” he yelled, spraying blood from his mouth. He dashed straight at Larry, the stake raised in his right hand.

  Larry fired.

  The metal belly of Jesus caved in and the upper corner of the big wooden cross gouged Uriah’s chest.

  I hit Jesus! Christ saved Uriah.

  Larry thumbed back the hammer, but he couldn’t pull the trigger.

  As Uriah bore down on him, he flung up his left arm to ward off the stake and whipped the barrel of his gun against the man’s temple. The gun discharged. Hair and flecks of bloody flesh flew off the side of Uriah’s head.

  Larry was slammed to the ground by the man’s limp weight. As his breath was knocked out, he drove his knees up. They jammed into Uriah’s belly.

  The vampire killer tumbled over Larry.

  From the sound of him, he kept on tumbling.

  Larry crawled to the rim and saw Uriah plummeting down the slope — rolling, twisting, bouncing over rocks, smashing through bushes, arrows flying from his quiver, his limp arms and legs flapping. Near the bottom he skidded on his back, headfirst, until his shoulder struck a knob of granite. The impact jarred him to a stop that sent his legs swinging up. He did a backward somersault and landed facedown on the floor of the ravine. He lay there motionless.

  Larry gazed down at him.

  Finish him off.It seemed to be Bonnie’s voice. Do it for me. If you love me, kill him.

  I can’t.

  If you don’t care what he did to me, look at your friend Pete. Look what Uriah tried to do to you. He tried to kill you, too.

  It would be easy, he realized. So easy to raise the revolver and empty it into the sprawled body.

  Do it, the voice of Bonnie urged him.

  But he thought about the way his bullet, fired point-blank at Uriah’s chest, had been stopped by the crucifix. As if God Himself had intervened to protect the man.

  God had nothing to do with it. Uriah was just lucky, that’s all. Finish him off, or you’ll be sorry.

  I’ve gotta get back to Pete.

  Kill Uriah.

  “No!” he blurted. Holstering his weapon, he turned away from the ravine. He snatched up his hat and hurried toward Pete.

  You’ll be sorry.

  He dropped to his knees and sagged with relief when he heard Pete’s raspy, gurgling breath. Out cold, but alive! Probably a broken nose. He looked like hell. The bridge of his nose was split and swollen. His eyes were swollen. Below his nostrils his face was sheathed with blood. A string of red saliva hung from the corner of his mouth.

  Larry shook him gently by the shoulder, wobbling his head. “Pete. Pete, wake up.”

  Nothing.

  Straddling him, Larry grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him into a sitting position. As his head came up, bloody drool flowed from his mouth. He coughed softly, spraying out more, but didn’t come to.

  Now what?

  I’ll have to carry him. There’s no other choice.

  What about his stuff?

  Sighing, Larry eased him farther forward until he hung slumped over his own legs. He seemed fairly steady that way. Letting go, Larry gathered the nearby revolver and hat. The gun went into Pete’s holster. Larry shoved the hat down on top of his Stetson.

  He crouched over Uriah’s canvas bag. It contained six wooden stakes, their ends whittled to points.

  Bring it along?

  Just an extra burden, he decided.

  Straddling Pete, he again tried to shake him awake. Then he gave up and grabbed him under the arms and hoisted him. He crouched, wrestling with the body until it flopped over his shoulder. Hugging the backs of Pete’s legs, he forced himself upright and started to walk.

  He made his way forward, eyes on the distant row of buildings. There seemed to be no passageways leading to the street. He would either have to lug Pete all the way around the end of town or take him through a window. His legs were already straining and shaky under the weight. It would have to be a window.

  Might as well be the one they’d climbed through when they went after Uriah.

  Suddenly imagining Uriah rushing at him from the rear, he swung around and looked back.

  Nobody there.

  Probably still at the bottom of the slope, Larry told himself, and continued trudging toward the window.

  He wondered if he hadkilled the man. The first bullet, he was pretty sure, had gone in one cheek and out the other. Certainly not fatal. The second bullet had buried itself in the crucifix or ricocheted off it. But the gun had discharged when he pounded Uriah with it. The bullet from that shot had struck the man’s head. No telling what kind of damage it might’ve done. Maybe it only sliced across his scalp. Or it might’ve gone into his head. That one could’ve killed him.

  At least I didn’t finish him off, Larry told himself. If the guy died from that last shot, it was an accident. And self-defense.

  Not that the cops are going to find out about any of this, he thought. Not if I can help it.

  He was n
early to the window when Pete moaned and squirmed a little. He took another step, another.

  “Uhhh. Put me down,” Pete mumbled.

  “Hang on.” Larry staggered the final distance to the wall. Crouching, he pressed his friend against it.

  “Look out, man.” Pete shoved him away, sank to his knees, hunched over and heaved bloody vomit. Then he hocked and spit out gobs of red mucus. When he finished, he stayed down, his head hanging. “Fuckin‘ A,” he mumbled.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Ohhh shit. You gotta be kidding.” With one hand he fingered his face. “What happened?”

  “Uriah clobbered you with a rock.”

  “I think my fuckin‘ nose is busted.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Feel like my head’s split open.”

  “You hit a rock when you fell, too.”

  He moaned again. He touched the back of his head. Larry didn’t see any blood in the hair.

  “We’d better get you to a doctor.”

  “Fuck that. Take me to an undertaker.” He pushed himself up and leaned against the wall. Holding the sides of his head, he squeezed his swollen eyes shut. “So what happened to Uriah?”

  “He’s down in the stream bed.”

  “Did one of us get him?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s a long story. Let’s get to the car. I’ll tell you about it later.”

  “Yeah, but is he dead, or what?”

  “He might be. I don’t know. Think you can get through the window okay?”

  “Sure,” he muttered.

  Larry climbed into the building. There, he clutched Pete’s arm and held him steady while he clambered over the sill. Keeping his grip, he led Pete through the shadowy room and out to the street.

  The car was still resting on its jack.

  The feathered shaft of an arrow jutted from the wall of the flat tire.

  “Good thing we hadn’t finished changing it,” Larry said.

  “Our lucky day,” Pete muttered.

  “It hasbeen lucky.”

  “Trade heads, you won’t think so.”

  “Could’ve been a lot worse.”

  “Yeah, sure. Get the trunk open, huh? Get me a beer.”