by Matt Hilton
Then something happened that I didn't expect. The helicopter dropped so that it was only a yard or so above the field. A side door was thrown open and two men jumped to the floor. They immediately fanned out, then they dropped to crouches, levelling M16 assault rifles at the wreckage I was behind.
My guess was that after the first two had checked me out, they had realised I was the man they were looking for and had hurried away for extra firepower. The two in the 4?4 had possibly been out at the perimeter of Huffman's land watching for anyone coming in that way and the chopper pilot had directed them to me. They thought that six men had more chance of taking me than two. They were probably right.
I wondered how far away Rink and Harvey were.
Too far.
Then I had no more time for idle thought because the two on the ground opened up with the assault rifles and the wreckage around me was being torn to shreds. I flattened myself to the ground, began rolling side-over-side, keeping as low a profile as possible. Hot metal churned the air. A lot of the rounds were stopped by the wreckage, but as many were getting through. Bullets punched the earth close to me. All I could do was to continue rolling and trust to some higher being to get me out of there alive.
I made it to a shallow ditch at the shoulder of the road, dropped into it, and then began crawling as quickly as I could out of the line of fire.
The two men were inching forwards, continuing to unload rounds through the 4?4. Some of their bullets must have been tearing the dead driver to pieces: that only showed me how determined these killers were to finish me. The chopper took off again, flying high, the pilot taking a look to see if I was dead before the two on the ground would move in.
Catch 22. I could fire at the chopper, or I could fire at the men on the ground. Either way I'd give up my position and the others would vector in on me. If I stayed where I was and did nothing, the chopper crew would see that I'd moved away and it would only take them seconds to find me again. Then the men with the assault rifles would move in to flank me and I'd be back to square one. Whatever way I looked at things my position was pretty dire.
Snatching a quick glance along the road, I hoped to see a Windstar heading my way, but the road remained empty. It was down to me to get out of this alive.
Pulling out the Glock 17 I'd liberated from the man I'd shot at the restaurant, I readied myself. In a situation like this, I could only hope to even up the firepower a little. I raised my head just high enough to see what was going on.
The chopper passed over the 4?4, turning slowly in place as the rifleman strafed the ground where I'd been hiding. The smoke boiling from the wreck was still my ally, but that would only last until the downwash blew it apart. Rising up quickly, I fired at the rifleman. My bullet hit him, cutting a chunk from his left shoulder. The man bobbed back inside the craft and the pilot must have grabbed at the controls, as the chopper dipped violently away.
I'd hoped to kill the rifleman in the chopper, force the pilot to keep well away from another shot, effectively halving the odds against me. But I'd only winged the bastard. Cursing under my breath, I looked for the men on the ground. One of them was hidden by the smoke, but I saw the other running at a tangent across the field, seeking to cut me off. Firing at him, I forced him to the ground. The man rolled as I'd done earlier. Then on his belly he returned fire. He looked like he had military experience. I fired again and my round dug a clod of earth from in front of him, causing him to jerk back.
Immediately I began crawling again. Worst-case scenario was being caught in this ditch with a man armed with an assault rifle at either end while a third gunman hovered overhead. Making it to a point east of where the nearest man was, I again swung up on to the edge of the ditch, firing at him. As I'd been moving, so had the man. He was ten yards closer now. He fired at me; a burst of sustained fire. The earth and grass around me exploded, dirt pushing into my eyes, making me fall back down into the ditch. The son of a bitch was a decent soldier. Quickly I scrambled away. Then I rolled on to my back. The second gunman was coming along the ditch towards me.
We both fired.
A bullet scorched my left thigh but my bullet caught him directly in his stomach. The man doubled over, his forward run bringing him closer to me. He crashed to the ground and his M16 flew from his hand. He wasn't dead yet. He scrambled to grab at a sidearm strapped to his hip. I put another round through his head and this time he fell still.
Glancing at his assault rifle, I considered going for it. But then the whine of the chopper was over me again and I heard the thump of running feet and knew that the other gunman was charging at me. I was still on my back, a prone target for either of the men bringing their guns to bear on me.
The man on the ground had more chance of killing me first. I aimed both my guns at him. It was awkward, holding the guns over my head and firing backwards, but I saw that he was forced to leap to one side. It would only be seconds until he was back though. I was seriously deep in it, I realised.
The helicopter screamed over me, and I put a couple of bullets through its belly. Then I snatched my attention back to the man on the ground. I saw him rise up, his M16 raised to his shoulder. There was a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. He caressed the trigger. Then I saw something else in his face. Indecision. He glanced to his side. The barrel of his assault rifle swung with his gaze.
A millisecond later his head disappeared under a welter of blood as a high-velocity round tore through it.
Thank God, my friends are here at last.
The man died instantly, but his brain's last command had been to pull the trigger of his gun. Rounds blasted from the M16, but they were ineffectual as they drove into the dirt next to the road. A second or so later the man's knees collapsed under him and he pitched chest down on the floor.
Now there was only the rifleman in the chopper to worry about. The chopper was out of my line of sight, but I could hear the crack of the rifle. A gun boomed in response and there was a scream and the sound of someone falling heavily to the earth. The same gun boomed again, a steady roll of thunder, and the pitch of the helicopter's engine changed. I sat up and saw the chopper banking away, trailing smoke from its fuselage. It headed north away from my position. The chopper was losing altitude all the time, and I wondered how long it would be until the engines gave out and it plummeted to the ground. A few seconds later came a distant whumph! and more smoke tinged the Texas skyline.
I grinned.
I turned round, looking for Rink and Harvey.
But they weren't my saviours.
Larry Bolan was.
Chapter 30
There was nothing that Larry Bolan desired more than to have Joe Hunter dead at his feet. The only problem was that he hadn't planned to have it this way. He wanted to hurt the man first. Hurt him badly. To shoot Hunter while he was lying in a ditch at the side of a field in the middle of nowhere just didn't sit right with him.
He'd driven here with no firm plan in mind. If Huffman knew he had killed Jim Aitken and Judge Wallace he'd hardly greet him with open arms. On the contrary, the men that Huffman had brought in to stop Hunter would be set against Larry if he showed up at Huffman's door. Anyone with sense would steer clear of Quicksilver Ranch.
But Larry had a good reason for heading to Huffman's place. He knew that Huffman would have brought Kate Piers here. Joe Hunter had proven to be capable back in Little Fork, and Larry had quite correctly surmised that Hunter would head here too.
He just hadn't thought he'd find him so soon.
Larry had seen the smoke first. Then the chopper circling like a vulture scoping out the land for food. He even heard the rattle of gunfire over the constant rumble of the old Cadillac's wheels on the rutted road. It didn't take a genius to figure out what was going on.
Speeding along the road, he'd seen the chopper drop low and deposit two guys with machine-guns on the ground. The guys had spread out, rattling bullets through a crashed Land Rover. There was the wreckage of a second vehicle
on the road ahead.
Larry had stopped the Cadillac, and, using the far shoulder of the road as cover from the men on the ground, he'd raced the last hundred yards or so towards the wreckage. The car was too mangled to be recognisable, but enough was left for him to use it as a shield to move closer. No one noticed him. They were too intent on a target scrambling along a ditch on the other shoulder of the road. Larry only got flashes of the figure crawling away from him, but he knew it could be only one man. He could feel it like a lodestone drawn to a magnet: the man in the ditch was Trent's murderer.
Larry saw one of the gunmen charge round the Land Rover and jump into the ditch. Hunter hadn't seen him. He was trading rounds with the other man who was approaching from the other side. Larry almost rose up to shoot the running gunman, but then he saw blood punch out of the man's body as he staggered and fell. Another round barked and the man didn't get up. Larry raised his eyebrows. He had to change his estimation of Joe Hunter – he was proving more than capable.
Then he decided, no, he's as easily killed as any man. The second gunman had seized the moment to aim his M16 assault rifle directly at Hunter. Plus the chopper was racing in and another man with a rifle was getting a bead on Hunter's prone body.
Larry didn't have more than a second to decide. He wasn't about to let any of Huffman's punks have the satisfaction of finishing Hunter. Hunter was his to kill.
'Hey!'
The man with the assault rifle glanced up. He saw the Desert Eagle pointing at him and Larry blasted his head right off. The Desert Eagle was a piece of work, he decided.
The guy in the chopper snapped his gaze from the dead man, looking for where Larry crouched behind the wreckage. Larry shot him too. The Magnum load ripped a hole out of the rifleman, low down in his groin. The man's legs went out from under him and he fell screaming from the chopper. He landed, boneless, on the earth and didn't move again.
The chopper pilot got a good look at Larry. If the chopper got away, then Huffman would definitely be pissed with Larry. He fired at the pilot. But the man had pulled on the controls, swinging the chopper away. Not that it mattered: the bullet from the Desert Eagle smashed through the engine casing and the chopper lost power as smoke began blowing from the hole. Larry watched as it lost height and caromed into the field where its rotors snapped off and the body rolled over twice and then erupted into a massive fireball. The pilot wouldn't be telling tales to Huffman now.
Quickly Larry marched out from behind the wreck, moving purposefully towards where Hunter lay in the ditch. He'd have to be careful. Hunter was armed. He looked like he was damn good with that pistol too. However, Larry had one big advantage. Hunter wouldn't be expecting him.
Larry pointed the gun directly at Hunter's head.
'Drop your weapons, punk,' Larry growled.
Hunter's face was a picture.
'Now, asshole. I won't tell you again.'
Hunter exhaled, but he didn't put down his guns.
He swung them quicker than Larry could follow so that both barrels were aiming back at him. Hunter sat up.
'You put down your weapon,' Hunter said.
Larry's smile was slow to form.
'This isn't the way I want things,' Larry said.
'Pity,' Hunter said. 'It's the way it is.'
'So what do we do now? Shoot each other?'
'Looks that way, doesn't it?'
'Sure does.'
But neither of them fired.
Larry didn't waver from his target.
'You killed my brother.'
'I did,' Hunter agreed. 'He was trying to kill me. So were you, Larry.'
Larry nodded very slightly. No getting away from it. The thing was, on those occasions he was being paid to kill Hunter. This time it was personal. He edged an inch closer to the prone man.
'I could shoot you now,' Larry said.
'Not without me shooting you.'
'Is that how you want things to turn out?'
'Personally, I'd rather kill you and get out of this alive, but,' Hunter smiled thinly, 'if there's nothing for it… so be it.'
'A fatalist, huh?'
'Realist.'
'So what do we do about it?'
'Start shooting or walk away, Larry.' Hunter wormed a leg beneath himself. 'Walk away and we'll do this another time.'
'You think I'm going to do that? So you can shoot me in the back?'
'That'd be the coward's way. I'm no coward. Anyway, I owe you, Larry. You just saved my life.'
'I saved you so I could rip you apart at my leisure.'
'I know that. But you aren't going to get any satisfaction if I put a slug in your head first.'
Larry considered that. Hunter was right. What if he fired and Hunter got him first? Maybe his goddamn gun would jam. What kind of half-assed revenge would that be? Personally, he didn't care if he died as long as Hunter died too, but how would he know for sure?
He squinted along the road at a low dark shape headed their way.
'Another time, then?'
'Another time.'
Larry stepped back, watching as Hunter came to his feet. He kept his gun trained on Hunter, as Hunter kept both his guns aimed at him. He locked stares with the man. Larry heard the roar of the approaching vehicle. He didn't look away, but he continued to walk steadily backwards.
'Huffman's men are coming,' Larry said. 'Don't go getting yourself killed after all this. You're mine, Hunter.'
'You've got a date, Larry.'
Back at the car wreck, Larry finally turned and jogged towards his Cadillac further along the road. Part of him expected a bullet in the spine, but a more resolute portion of his brain told him that Joe Hunter wasn't going to shoot him like a dog. There was more to Hunter than that: it was like he said, he wasn't a coward. Unlike punks like Tito back at the roadhouse, he wasn't about to try to take Larry from behind. If he'd been that kind of man, he'd have killed him that first time they met in the forest.
Larry eased into the Cadillac, twisted the key in the ignition. The engine roared to life, and Larry spun the car in the road. He looked back and could see a vehicle coming, sending up a cloud of dust in its haste.
'Don't get yourself killed, Hunter,' he said one last time.
Then he drove away.
Chapter 31
Larry Bolan had been wrong on two major counts. It wasn't Huffman's guys who were driving like crazy men towards me. I recognised the shape of the Ford Windstar and knew that it was Rink and Harvey charging to my rescue. And he was wrong when he allowed his bitter desire to hurt me to get in the way of a clean kill.
I made a big mistake too. I should have shot Bolan the second he turned to run back to the Cadillac. But that isn't in me. Face to face, I'll do what must be done to any enemy, but I'm not going to put a bullet in someone running away. It's a failing for someone engaged in my line of work, but it's also something I'm damn proud of.
Holding my guns at my sides, I watched Larry spin the car round in the road. The Cadillac – a classic model with fins and chrome – was like a huge boat on wheels, and I couldn't imagine where he'd got it. He roared away in a plume of dust. So I turned and watched my friends haring towards me. I stepped out so that I was on the shoulder of the road, and I waved, letting them know I was OK.
Bringing the Windstar to a halt, both Rink and Harvey lurched out of the vehicle. Rink had a pistol-grip Mossberg shotgun in his hands and Harvey came armed with a Glock 17. Both their faces were set. Intent on killing.
'Easy, guys. It's all over.'
'The hell, you say?' Rink surveyed the scene of devastation all around us. Three vehicles destroyed and six men dead. 'We leave you alone for five minutes and… well… just look at this! You're hoggin' all the fun yourself.'
The roar of the Cadillac was still audible, even if the car was now out of sight.
'One of them is getting away,' Harvey said. 'You think that's wise?'
'It wasn't one of Huffman's men, it was Larry Bolan.'
&nbs
p; 'Bolan,' Rink said. 'Last I heard he was one of Huffman's men.'
'He isn't any longer. Believe it or not, Larry just saved my ass.'
'Get outa here!'
He wasn't speaking literally, but Rink's words weren't such a bad idea. We piled into the Windstar, the guys up front and me in the back. Harvey navigated the road round the wreckage of my Saturn, then headed off at speed following in the same direction Larry had gone. Back to Pilot Point.
I told them what had happened, ending with Bolan's reluctance to shoot me when he had the chance.
'So he's looking for a showdown?' Rink said.
'I suppose I owe him.'
'For killing his brother?' Harvey asked, incredulous. He caught my eye in the rear-view mirror. 'That's crazy thinking, man.'
'I was thinking how I'd be if someone had killed my brother,' I said. 'Or either of you. I don't blame Larry for wanting a one-on-one with me.'
'You don't owe him anything,' Rink said. 'There's no honour in the man, Hunter. You know that.'
'I know. But that doesn't change anything.' I laughed at the absurdity. 'Larry saved my life. I agreed to give him a chance at what he wants. You know how much I stand by my word.'
'The truth, Hunter?'
Giving him a sheepish grin, I said, 'OK. I want him too.'
'The guy's a goddamn freak of nature.' Coming from Rink, that statement meant something. 'Why'd you want to fight somethin' like that?'
I considered my reasons. It was perhaps misguided, but since Larry had manhandled me back in the workshop where Trent died, I'd been feeling a little inadequate. 'I have to prove something to myself.'
'Man…' Rink groaned. 'That means if he kicks your ass, I'm gonna have to fight him.'
Rink has an absurd sense of humour at times. But I wasn't laughing.
We drove through semi-rural areas where human habitation was more apparent, and picked up South Highway 377 toward Pilot Point. All along the way I watched for Larry Bolan's wheeled warship, but apparently he'd headed off elsewhere.