Hot Springs es-1

by Stephen Hunter

  But by that time he had gone totally prone and begun to crawl, crawl desperately forward in the highest grass there was, hoping he could get so close he could count on his superior reflexes to carry the battle. He squirmed like a man aflame, whereas it was others who were aflame. Then the cowboy started shooting wildly. He listened as the man pumped out magazine after magazine, but behind him, where he'd been, not where he was now and where he was headed.

  He crawled and crawled until the firing stopped.

  By his reckoning he was now just twenty yards or so away, and the cowboy had no idea where he was.

  He peered through the grass, rising incrementally higher for visibility and suddenly beheld a wondrous sight.

  The cowboy had a jam. His empty magazine was caught in the gun and he tugged it desperately to get it free, his hand up toward the receiver. Then suddenly whatever it was gave, he pulled the magazine out, and dropped it, his hand reaching into his suit pocket for another.

  "Hold it!" said Johnny, covering him with the muzzle.

  The cowboy whirled but what could he do? He had an empty gun in one hand and a fresh magazine in the other. He was a good two seconds from completing the reload.

  "Well, well," said Johnny, walking forward, his muzzle expertly sighted on the big man's heaving chest, "look who we've caught with his pants down. Jam on you, did it? Them damn things is tricky. You've got to baby them or you'll regret it, lad. Come now, let's have a look at you."

  The man regarded him sullenly. Johnny knew he'd be thinking desperately of something to do. Caught like this, with no ammo! Him with the big fancy gun, him who'd shot all them other fellers, and now him with nothing.

  "Cut me a break, will you, pal?" said the cowboy.

  "And live the rest of me life looking over the shoulder? I should think not."

  "I just want Maddox. I don't give a fuck about you. Just walk away and forget all this. You can live."

  "Oh, now he's dictating terms, is he?" Johnny laughed. He was now about fifteen feet away, close enough.

  "I didn't have to kill your boys. They were here, that's all."

  "I should thank you for that, pally. Now the take's so much bigger. You've made me an even wealthier man. I'll drink many a champagne toast to you, friend, for your fine work. You are a game lad. You're about the gamest I've ever seen."

  Earl just stared at him.

  "I know what you're thinking. Maybe you can get the magazine into the gun and get the gun into play and bring old Johnny down. Why do I think not? No, old sod, you've been bested. Admit it now, you've been handled. Ain't many could handle the likes of you, but by God I'm the one man in a million who could do it."

  "You talk a lot," said the man.

  "That I do. The Irish curse. We are a loquacious race. Maybe I should walk you across the field and let Mr. Owney Maddox himself put the last one into you. He'd probably pay double for that pleasure."

  "You won't do that. You won't take the chance."

  "Well, boyo, that's the sad truth. But I won't be long. I'll just―"

  His eyes lit.

  "Say," he said. "I'm a sporting fellow. You're holding an empty gun."

  "Let me load it."

  "No thank you. But here's what I'll do." He reached under his coat and removed a.45. It was one of the Griffin & Howe rebuild jobs with which D. A. had armed his raid team.

  He threw it into the dirt in front of Earl.

  "That one's nice and loaded," he said with a smile.

  "But it's five feet away."

  "It is indeed. Now I'll count to three. On three you can make a dive at the gun. Til finish you well before, but I might as well give you a one-in-one-thousand chance. Maybe my tommy will jam."

  "You're a bastard."

  "Me mother said the same. Are you ready, fellow?"

  He let his gun muzzle drift down until it pointed to the ground. He watched as Earl looked at the gun on the ground five feet in front of him.

  "See, here's the thing," said the cowboy. "Fights sometimes ain't what you want 'em to be."

  "One," said Johnny.

  He meant to shoot on two, of course.

  The cowboy's tommy gun came up in a flash and there was a report and for just a millisecond it seemed a tendril of sheer illumination had lashed out to snare him.

  The next thing Johnny knew, he was wet.

  Why was he wet?

  Had he spilled something?

  Then he noticed he was lying on his back. He heard something creaking, like a broken accordion, an air-filled sound, high and desperate, a banshee screaming out in the bogs, signifying a death. He blinked and recognized it as a sucking chest wound. His own.

  He could only see sky.

  The cowboy stood over him.

  "I slipped one cartridge into the chamber before I shucked the magazine," he said.

  "I― I―" Johnny began, seeing that it was possible. The gun looked empty. It wasn't.

  "Think of the railyard, chum," said Earl, as he locked in the new magazine, drew back the bolt and then fired thirty ball tracers into him.

  Chapter 65

  "Twelve," said the doctor. "Yes sir," said the nurse.

  "Mrs. Swagger, you are dilated twelve centimeters. You have another four or five to go. There's no need to endure this pain. Please let us give you the anesthesia."

  "No," she said. "I want my husband."

  "Ma'am, we've tried but we can't raise him. Ma'am, I'm afraid we've got a problem. You would be so much better off with the anesthesia."

  "No, you'll take my baby."

  She felt so alone. She could only see the ceiling. Occasionally the doctor loomed into view, occasionally the nurse.

  The two put her gown down.

  "We do have a problem with the baby," said the doctor. "It may be necessary to make a decision."

  "Save the baby. Save my baby! Don't hurt my baby!"

  "Mrs. Swagger, you can have other babies. This one is upside down in your uterus. I can't get it out, not without cutting you horribly and, frankly, I'm not equipped to do that and I don't know if I could stop the hemorrhaging once it got started, not here, not with two nurses and no other doctors."

  "Can't you get another doctor?" someone asked, and Junie recognized the voice of her friend, Mary Blanton.

  "Mrs. Blanton, please get back into the waiting room! You are not permitted back here."

  "Sir, somebody has to stay with Junie. I cannot let her go through this alone. Honey, I'm here."

  Good old Mary! Now there was a woman! Mary couldn't be pushed around, no sir! Mary would fight like hell!

  "Thank you, Mary," Junie said, as another contraction pressed a bolt of pain up through her insides.

  "Ma'am, there are no other doctors. In Fort Smith, yes, in Hot Springs, yes, at Camp Chaffee, yes, but you chose a small public hospital in Scott County to have your baby during a late-night shift and I am doing what I can do. Now please, you have to leave."

  "Please let her stay," begged Junie.

  "When we go back to delivery, she can't come. You may stay here, ma'am, but do not touch anything, and stay out of the way."

  "Yes sir"

  The doctor seemed to leave, but instead he pulled Mary out into the hall.

  "Look," he said, "we have a very complicated situation here. That woman may die. By my calculus, the baby's life is not worth the woman's life. The woman can have other babies. She can adopt a child. If it comes to it, I may have to terminate the baby's life, get it out of her in pieces. That may be the only way to save her life."

  "Oh, God," said Mary. "She wants that baby so bad."

  "Where is her husband?"

  "We're not sure."

  "Bastard. These white trash Southern hillbillies are―"

  "Sir, Earl Swagger is not trashy. He's a brave man, a law enforcement officer, and if he's not here, it's because he's risking his life to protect you. Let me tell you, sir, if someone broke into your house at night, the one man you'd want to protect you and yours is
Earl Swagger. That is why we have to protect his."

  "Well, that's very fine. But we are coming up to decision time and I am not authorized to make this decision on my own and I could get in a lot of trouble. If I don't terminate the baby, that woman will die a needless, pointless and tragic death. She needs your help to decide. You help her decide. That's the best you can do for your friend."

  Chapter 66

  The screen of smoke blew across the valley, white and shifting.

  Owney had a hope that Johnny Spanish and one or two of his boys would come out of it, laughing, full of merry horseplay, happy to have survived and triumphed. But he was not at all surprised or even disappointed when the other man emerged.

  Out of the smoke he came. He was a tall man, in a suit, with his hat low over his eyes. He carried a tommy gun and looked dead-set on something.

  Owney saw no point in running. He was a realist. There was no place to run to and if he got into the forest he would be easy to track and he'd be taken down and gutted.

  It occurred to him to get into the station wagon and try and run the man down. But this cool customer would simply watch him come and fill him with lead from the tommy gun.

  So Owney just sat there on the fender of the old Ford station wagon. He smoked a Cuban cigar and enjoyed the day, which had turned nice, clear, with a cool wind fluttering across the valley. The sun was warm, even hot, and there were no clouds. In the background, the hillside burned, but it seemed to have run out of energy as the flames spread and died, leaving only cinders to smolder.

  The man seemed to come out of war. That's what it looked like; behind him, the smoke curled and drifted, and its stench filled the air; the hillside was blackened. There were bodies back there. Five of them. He'd gotten Johnny Spanish and his crew. Nobody ever got Johnny, not the feds, the State Police, all the city detectives, the sheriffs, the deputies, the marshals. But this one got them all in a close-up gunfight. He was something.

  The cowboy was finally within earshot.

  With a certain melancholy and an idea for his last gambit, Owney rose.

  "Lawman!" he screamed. "I surrender! I'm unarmed! IyU go back with you! You win!"

  He stood away from the car and took off his jacket and held his hands stiff and high. Slowly he pirouetted to show that he had no guns tucked in his belt. He rolled up his sleeves to show that his wrists were bare to the elbow.

  He had the bicycle gun stuck in its sleeve garter against his left biceps, on the inside, just above the elbow. He'd ripped a large hole in the inside seam of the shirt, invisible from afar, so that he could get at it quickly.

  Let him get close, he thought. Let him get close. Offer him respect. Show him fear. Relax him. Put him at his ease. When he lowers the tommy gun, go for the bike pistol and shoot him five times fast, in the body.

  He smiled as the man drew near.

  The cowboy was lean and drawn. His face had a gaunt look, exhaustion under the furious concentration. His suit was dusty, his eyes aglare, the hat low over them. He looked Owney up and down, taking his measure.

  "I'm unarmed," said Owney. "You won! You got me!"

  It just might work.

  Earl was not surprised that Owney Maddox awaited him with his hands high, his arms bare. What else could Owney do? He was out of options, other than killing himself, and Owney wasn't that kind of boy. He was no Japanese marine, who'd cut his own guts out and die with a grenade under his belly so that when you turned the corpse over two days later, the grenade would enable you to join him in heaven. No, that was not Owney's style.

  He stopped ten feet shy of Owney.

  "You win, partner," said Owney, with a smile. "You are a champ. I'll say that. You are a pro. You handled the best there is, my friend. I'm outclassed."

  Earl said nothing.

  He raised his tommy gun, and holding it deftly with one hand let it cover Owney.

  "You're not going to shoot me," Owney said. "My hands are up. I've surrendered. You don't have it in you for that kind of stuff. That's the difference between us. You can't make yourself squeeze on an unarmed man with his hands in the air. I know you. You're a soldier, not a gangster. You won a war, but you wouldn't last a week on an island with alleys and nightclubs."

  Earl just looked him over, then transferred the Thompson to his left hand.

  "Take your belt off and throw it over here."

  "Yah. See. I knew you weren't the type," said Owney, doing the job with one hand.

  "Thought you was English," said Earl.

  "Only when I want to be, chum. Come on, tie me, let's get this over. I want to get back in time to hear Frankie on the radio."

  But then he stopped. He looked quizzically at Earl.

  "I have to know. You're not working for Bugsy Siegel, are you?"

  "That guy?" said Earl. "Don't know nothing about him."

  "You fool," said Owney. "You have no idea what you've done, do you?"

  "Nope."

  Owney joined his hands together for Earl to loop them with the belt. Earl knelt to retrieve the belt. As he rose with it, Owney stepped forward and seemed to stumble just a bit and then his hand fled to his arm. He was fast.

  But Earl was faster. His right hand flew to the Colt automatic in his belt like a bolt of electricity shearing the summer air. It was a fast that can't be taught, that no camera could capture. He caught the pistol in his other hand and thrust it toward Owney even as a crack split the air. Owney had fired one-handed. Owney had missed.

  Hunched and doublehanded, Earl knocked five into the gangster, all before Owney could get the hammer thumbed back on the bike gun for a second shot. The rounds kicked the gangster back and set him down hard as the little weapon fell from his fingers into the grass.

  Now Earl knew who had killed his father. Now Earl knew what had happened to his father's little gun. But he didn't care. His old father meant nothing to him now. He thought of his new father, the man who'd died for him in the railyard. Now he'd tracked D. A.'s true killer down and paid out justice in gunfire.

  Earl walked over to Owney. Five oozing holes were clustered in a slightly oblong circle on his white shirt under his heart. They were so close you could cover them with one hand, and they were wounds nobody comes back from.

  "W-who are you?" Owney asked.

  "You'd never believe it," said Earl.

  Chapter 67

  She had borne so much pain she had become numbed by it. Her eyes were vague, her sense of reality elongated, her sense of time vanished. The pain just came and came and came, and had its way, though now and then a moment of lucidity reached her, and she concentrated on the here and now, and then it all went away in pain.

  She heard someone say, "She's at fifteen. We've got to do it."

  "Yes, doctor."

  The young doctor's face flew into view.

  "Mrs. Swagger, I have been on the phone all over the state trying to get an OB-GYN, even a resident, even a horse doctor over here. Someone can be here in an hour, I'm sorry to report. So I have to act now, or we will lose both you and the child."

  "Don't take my baby!"

  "You will bleed to death internally in a very short while. I'm sorry but I have to do what's right. Nurse, get her prepped. I'm going to go scrub."

  She had fought so hard. Now, at the end, she had nothing left.

  "It's all right," she heard Mary whispering. "You have to get through this. You'll have other babies. Honey, he's right, you've fought so hard, but it's time to move on. You have to survive. I couldn't live without you, I'm so selfish. Please, your mama, your papa, everybody, they are pulling for you."

  "Where's Earl, Mary?"

  "I am sorry, honey. He didn't make it."

  Then she felt herself moving. A nurse was pushing her down the dimly lit hallway. The gurney vibrated and each vibration hurt her bad. A bump nearly killed her. She was in a brightly lit room. The doctor had a mask on. Then he turned away from her. A mask came and she smelled its rubbery density. She turned her face,
waiting for the gas, and saw the doctor with his back to her. He was working with a long probe but she saw that it had a pointed end to it, like a knitting needle.

  My baby, she thought. They are going to use that on my baby.

  "She's ready, doctor."

  "All right, give her―"

  There was a commotion.

  A woman had broken in. Angry words were spoken. Then she heard the doctor say, "I don't care about all that. Get him in here."

  The doctor was back.

  "Well, Mrs. Swagger, your husband just showed up."

  "Earl!"

  "Yes ma'am. And he has another doctor with him."

  But there was something on his face.

  "What's wrong?"

  "This is your part of the country down here, not mine. You would understand better than me. I don't understand, but that nurse says if we let this doctor in here, there will be some trouble."

  "Please. Please help my baby."

  "All right, ma'am. I knew you'd say that."

  "The doctor―?"

  "The doctor your husband brought. He's colored."

  Earl explained it once again.

  "Ma'am, I don't care what your rules say. That's my wife in there and my child, and you need another doctor and this doctor has kindly consented to assist and he's delivered over a thousand babies through the years, so just step aside."

  "No Negroes are allowed in this hospital. That's the rule." This was the hospital shift supervisor, a large woman in glasses, whose face was knit up tight as a fist as she clung to her part of the empire.

  "That was yesterday. There are new rules now."

  "And who has made that determination?"

  "I believe I have."

  "Sir, you have no right."

  "My wife and baby ain't going to die because you have some rule that never made no sense and is only waiting for someone to come along and blow it down in a single day. This is that day and I am that man."

  "I will have to call the sheriff."

  "I don't give a hang who you call, but this doctor is going to help my wife, and that's all there is to it. I'll thank you to move or so help me God I'll move you and you won't like it a bit. Now, for the last time, madam, get the goddamned hell out of our way."