Chapter 28

“Oh, God … I’m a Dead Man”

Doug examined the rifle once more. It was a Savage, a lever-action Model 99G Take-Down, and probably had been built in the 1920s. The bore was badly pitted, but the gun was worth saving. Someone had pawned it, and the owner at Missoula Pawnbrokers wanted to know if it fired well enough to be sold.

There was an interesting history behind this old hunting rifle. The Model 99 fired a Savage 250 round, which originally was called the Savage 250-3000, named so because it was the first cartridge to achieve a velocity of 3,000 feet per second, which was noteworthy in 1915 when it was introduced. This particular specimen had excessive head space, so Doug had to manufacture cartridges that would properly fit the bigger bore. After he set the rifle on its butt, leaning it against his workbench in the basement, he then stuffed his custom-made cartridges into an ammo box, wrapping tape over every three cartridges and labeling each load. So much powder. So much primer. Later, he would make entries in his logbook detailing how each load fired.

As he was close to finishing, he heard Kris come in the front door. He picked up the rifle and the box of cartridges, and with his one free hand, grabbed Kris’s rifle, also a Savage Model 99. Hers was a newer model, which he had cut down to fit his wife’s petite frame.

They were planning a night out with some friends. They had met John and Darla McKee through a wine-tasting group. But John and Darla and Doug and Kris weren’t going to be sampling wines tonight. This was going to be a gun night. Darla, a novice shooter, wanted a chance to fire Kris’s rifle before she borrowed it for antelope season, which was coming up. Doug wanted to give the old Savage a workout, too, and the McKee’s place was perfect for this kind of thing. They lived in Frenchtown, a twenty-minute drive west of Missoula along the Clark Fork River.

It was a warm Wednesday night, and the prospect of taking the drive along the river and seeing their friends was something to look forward to. Doug was also eager to see how his cartridge loads worked out.

There was at least an hour’s worth of light left by the time they arrived at the McKees’. John and Doug set up some targets, and Doug and Darla blasted away. The gun fit her well, and Doug, who was firing the pawnshop relic, was pleased to discover that with the right cartridge load, it could still be used. John joined in, shooting off a few rounds as Doug made some notes and packed up the six leftover cartridges. Darla headed inside with Kris to see to dinner, and soon the men quit. It was starting to get dark, but it was also getting a bit late to be making such a racket with gunfire.

The foursome ate barbecued chicken and drank a few beers. On previous occasions, when they got together like this, they would often let the party stretch on, and they would have a lot more to drink. But not on this night. John was beat. A foreman at Stone Container’s pulp mill in Frenchtown, he had been working twelve-hour days because of a strike, and he was facing an early shift the next day. So at eleven-thirty, Doug loaded the guns into his Honda, and they all said their good-nights.

It was ten minutes to midnight by the time they neared their house on Parker Court. As they approached from the west, turning off Reserve onto River and then proceeding along Davis, which intersected their street, Doug noticed an orange and white Ford pickup parked obtrusively just off the road on the side lawn of their property. It was half on the street and half in the yard.

“Boy, that gets me,” he said to Kris. “Look at that guy.” It bothered him that somebody would occupy his turf that way, and after they both were inside the house, he wasn’t going to let it go. He grabbed a flashlight, heading back out to investigate, and Kris, who had patted Sundance on her way through the living room, was making for the bedroom. She couldn’t wait to get into bed. It had been a long day.

Doug kept a fourteen-foot fishing boat on a trailer under his backyard deck, and he often fretted about how simple it would be for someone to back up to it and drive away. As he headed out of the house, he first aimed the light under the deck. The boat was there, all right. Then he walked toward the pickup, hesitating as he got within ten feet of it, then coming up for a closer look. He could see someone slouched down on the front seat. The man moved slightly as the light was shone on him, but it appeared to Doug that the guy was sleeping one off.

“Somebody had too much,” he called to Kris when he came back in. “That was as far as he could get so he came in for a landing and is gettin’ a few ZZZs.”

“Mmmm,” Kris answered. She was already in bed, settling up against a pillow, flipping the pages of People magazine.

Doug went down to the basement where he soaked a cleaning patch in solvent, scrubbed the bore of the old Savage with a bristle brush, and then threaded the wet patch through the barrel. He left the gun leaned up against his reloading bench, right next to the six unshot rounds. Then, as he headed back upstairs, he started thinking about the strange truck outside.

“That’s too weird,” he called again to Kris from the kitchen. “I’m gonna go get a license number and call the cops.”

This time, when he went back outside, the truck was gone.

Now, in the house again, he had turned out most of the lights and was getting a drink of water in the kitchen when he remembered it was garbage night. The next day, Thursday, was pickup day. Because Kris had the day off, they probably would sleep in some, so he decided he better take out the garbage now. He walked back down the short flight of steps to a landing and stepped down into the garage. He slid the two refuse containers across the floor to the overhead door and with one hand lifted it up. As he took about two steps onto the driveway he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Crouched down between an ornamental evergreen and the side of the house was the figure of a man, or part of a man. All he could see was someone’s ass end. Doug’s heart jumped into his throat.

“Who’s there?” he blurted.

At that moment, the man behind the bush leaped out into the front yard.

“Wayne from Conlin’s,” the man announced himself.

Doug didn’t recognize him, but his mind was putting it together. If he had said he was just “Wayne,” Doug wouldn’t have had any instant recognition. If he had said, “Wayne from work,” Doug would have immediately thought of Wayne Lundberg, a taxidermist he knew.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Doug demanded, now seeing Wayne Nance’s face in the little bit of light from the garage.

“Ah … ah,” Wayne stammered, “I saw something out here. If you have a flashlight, you better get it.”

The first thing Doug thought of was the orange and white truck. He didn’t stop to think that it was even more strange that Wayne was standing in his front yard—at midnight—or that Wayne had been sneaking around in the bushes. Doug’s millisecond-long rationalization was that maybe Wayne was out driving around and had seen the guy in the truck.

“Okay, I’ve got one in the house. I’ll go get it.”

Doug turned and reentered the garage, stepped up to the landing and was just about to take the last step into his living room when he felt a blow to the back of his head. The next thing he knew, he was lying on the floor in the living room, the back of his head was split wide open and bleeding, and Wayne was coming after him, brandishing a mean-looking black billy club with a lanyard that was looped on his wrist. Wayne was wild eyed.

Doug rolled up on his back, trying to kick Wayne with his right foot. Wayne turned to his right as he was coming up the steps, and Doug delivered a glancing blow that sent Wayne spinning into the wall. Wayne was down, and as he tried to get back up, Doug grabbed him, pulling him down again. Doug was all over him, and when he had Wayne tightly by the collar, he dragged him up the stairs where they both careened into Sundance’s dog bed.

No one had said a word yet, but Kris heard a loud thud. It was the sound of something dropping. It was a noise she couldn’t explain. Then there were thumps and thuds, the sound of bodies against the walls and the floor, and she came running into the living room. There she found her husband grappling with another man at the top of the stairs. She raced over to Doug, who she could see was bleeding profusely from the slice out of the back of his head.

They both watched as Wayne reached with his right hand across to his left side and pulled the gun, his father’s quick-draw Ruger.

“Get back,” he ordered. “I’ve got a gun.”

Doug still had hold of him, but he let go, and then shimmied backwards on his butt farther into the room. When Kris saw the man’s face, she didn’t recognize it. It was fiercely distorted. The way the light struck the man’s glasses didn’t help either. It took a few seconds of looking at him and hearing him say “I’ve got a gun” for the picture to gel.

“Wayne!” she screamed. “What are you doing here? Why are you doing this? What’s wrong? What’s happening?” she yelled, cradling Doug’s head.

“Get back! Get away from me. Get back a little ways.”

Doug backed up some more, Kris holding him to her chest as he lay on his right side, up on one elbow, still woozy.

“Why are you doing this, Wayne?” Kris demanded, screaming at him.

It seemed Wayne would answer now. He dragged it out as he said, “I’ve done something really bad. I gotta get out of town. I know Conlin’s got paid today. I know you probably have some money here. So I’m gonna get some money and I’m gonna get out of town.”

No one talked for a couple of minutes as Wayne gestured for them to get farther back into the room, pacing back and forth. Kris rested Doug’s head against an ottoman. Then Wayne produced a section of white clothesline rope he carried in a plastic breadsack he pulled from under his plaid, cotton-flannel shirt, which he wore tails out. Otherwise, Wayne was dressed just as he might be any other day, in blue jeans and a T-shirt. He took off his brown jersey gloves to cut a section of rope with a kitchen-type cutlery knife he pulled from a scabbard he wore on his belt, and told Kris to tie Doug’s hands and feet.

“You don’t have to tie us up,” Kris said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Do it.”

Kris by now had figured that Wayne must have gotten into a fight with Rick Mace. That he probably had beaten the shit out of Rick, or maybe even killed him. That he needed to get out of town, and he needed money to do that. It all made sense to her. There was no point now in trying to sweet-talk Wayne, because Kris could see that he was seething, just the way he would be at work. He was cold, very matter-of-fact, with that familiar determined look on his face. He was set on what he was going to do. His voice wasn’t especially loud, and it was not actually expressing anger. It was impersonal. Still, if she were going to bind Doug with this rope, she would tie a loose knot.

He told her to tie his hands behind him. After she did, Wayne leaned over to check.

“Tie it tighter,” he said.

So she did, and then Wayne tied Doug’s feet, and started moving around the house.

“Where’s the money?” he asked.

“Well, it’s in the little blue china cup in the bedroom. There’s some money. I’ll get it for you,” Kris said.

“No. You stay on the floor.”

Kris told him there was some money in her purse, which was looped over the back of a chair in the kitchen. She kept asking him questions, wanting to know why he was there and what it was he had done. Then she changed her tune, deciding she didn’t want to know what Wayne had done.

“If you want some money? If you need the car? Take it. Just go. Go!”

Wayne didn’t answer back. He just paced.

“Can I get something for Doug’s head?”

Wayne picked up a white afghan from the back of a rocker and tossed in on Doug’s head. When Kris complained that it was too scratchy, he got her a towel from the bathroom.

Wayne stuffed about $130 in his pocket, and continued to move back and forth throughout the house. In the kitchen, he tried to close the window blinds, but he was having trouble. He was pulling and pulling, but he couldn’t get them to work.

“Wayne, let me do it,” Kris called. “You’re going to ruin those blinds!” Kris was remembering how expensive they were.

“Stay down and don’t move.”

Eventually he got them closed, and he headed back into the living room, where he pulled the shades down. Both Doug and Kris had commanded Sundance to lie down by the wall. The dog obeyed. They sensed that Wayne was getting antsy about the two of them being together. And when Wayne said he was going to tie Kris, Doug protested. He really didn’t want Wayne to tie Kris, and he tried in vain to talk him out of it. After a while, when Kris also failed to convince Wayne that it wasn’t necessary, Doug told her to forget it.

“You know, just don’t say anything,” he whispered to her. “It isn’t working anyway.”

Wayne tied Kris’s hands together in front of her and again started with his justification: “I’ve done something really bad and I gotta get out of town. Once I get out of town, I’ll call somebody and they’ll come and untie you. Then you’ll be free. I’ll be gone.”

As Wayne talked, Kris studied the bloodstain on the carpet, thinking to herself, Okay, how am I going to get all this blood off my carpet? There’s just a little bit of blood on the carpet right now, and this is going to be over in no time.

“Who should I call, who?” Wayne asked himself out loud. “You’ve got that friend,” he said, looking at Kris, “that blond girl, your friend? Wanda?”

Everybody at Conlin’s knew Wanda Smith. When Wanda came into the store, no one even bothered to wait on her, because they knew she was there to see Kris. Wayne had delivered to Wanda’s house many times.

“What’s her phone number?” Wayne asked, walking over to the edge of the table, reaching for an envelope that lay on the table.

“Well, Wanda’s not home,” Kris said. “She’s in Spokane. But Bryan is.”

“What’s the number?” Wayne was stern.

As Kris gave him the number, Wayne scribbled it down on the flap of a paper he had ripped from the envelope. Both Doug and Kris were having different thoughts by now. Kris was thinking, He’s really going to do it. He is going to call them. Doug, who through his daze was watching Wayne zoom from room to room, shutting the blinds, collecting the money, writing down phone numbers, zipping here, zipping there, was thinking, For a guy who’s done something really bad and needs to get out of town, he sure is dickin’ around a lot. It hadn’t entered either of their thoughts that the situation could get any worse, that something really bad might happen to them. Instead, they followed Wayne’s train of thought.

“I gotta separate you two. Or you’ll untie each other too fast,” Wayne said, reentering the living room again.

That made some sense, too. That he had to separate them. Everything’s going to be all right, they said to themselves, as soon as he leaves.

It was now just after 12:30 A.M. Wayne had held his hostages for more than thirty minutes. Doug was down on his side, unable to see much of what was going on, but he saw Wayne lift his wife off the floor, heading for the bedroom. It was the first time Wayne physically touched Kris, and it was strange. She was in her nightshirt, and it occurred to her that she was in a pretty vulnerable position.

Kris felt almost weightless as Wayne carried her down the hall. He put her on the bed and proceeded to tie her hands and feet. She was still just thinking about when he was going to leave as Wayne fumbled with the ropes, trying for a good anchor to secure her hands.

The brass-plate headboard wobbled too much, so Wayne tied her hands to the frame. Wayne tied her right hand in a slip-type knot that closed tighter as it was pulled. He tied her feet together with one loop of rope secured by a square knot.

“You have any nylons?” he asked. It was the only thing he had said to her since bringing her into the bedroom.

“Yes,” she answered, telling him which drawer.

Wayne opened it and removed a pair of pantyhose. He opened a second drawer, and removed a pair of Doug’s white athletic socks, trimmed with a red band at the top. He stuffed a sock into Kris’s mouth and tied the pantyhose around her head, securing the gag. Kris could feel that he hadn’t tied it very tightly.

Then Wayne returned to Doug, who was still on his side, his hands tied behind him and his head resting on the ottoman. Doug was still bleeding, and not thinking straight, when Wayne stuffed a sock into his mouth. Wayne didn’t say anything. What’s this? Doug thought to himself. No one has ever done this to me before. We’re really playing games now.

He realized he could spit it out, but he didn’t, thinking, I’ll keep it in if that makes him happy. Let’s just get him out of here.

Wayne scampered back and forth between the bedroom and the living room a few more times, then came over to Doug.

“I’m gonna take you downstairs,” he said, a little more frenzied than before. “I’m gonna tie you up down there, so that you’ll be away from Kris.”

Wayne appeared to be on an adrenaline rush now. He was getting more excited. As Wayne came closer to remove the sock from Doug’s mouth, he sensed Wayne was a little unsure of himself. Doug didn’t want to be taken to the basement, and he wanted to tell Wayne that there was no reason to do it, but his mind had decided not to argue, not to get Wayne any more agitated.

“I can’t get down with my legs tied up,” Doug said.

“Okay.” Wayne untied his feet and helped him up.

“I can’t walk down forwards. I’ll go down backwards,” Doug said.

Wayne stuffed the sock back into Doug’s mouth, and stood above him on the stairs as he half-supported his prisoner and half-pushed him down the short flight of seven steps, all the time holding Doug’s right arm. Wayne’s revolver was back in the holster, where he had put it soon after he tied them both.

Wayne shut the door behind them, and that’s all Kris heard—she knew it was the basement door because of the familiar sound made by its hollow core when it was closed. The basement was an unfinished space. There was a washer and a dryer, a framed-up bathroom wall, and Doug’s reloading bench. Wayne pushed Doug right past the bench, right past the old Savage rifle and the stack of ammo to a structural support post.

“I’ll tie ya to this. And then I’ll call somebody and they’ll come get ya,” he said. Wayne then moved Doug up against the wood column support. Doug was facing the stairway and to his right—some fifteen feet away—was the reloading bench and the Savage. Hands still tied behind, Doug was weak. He started to slide down to the floor, leaning into the post. Wayne had let go of him, and just as Doug began his descent, he felt a blow to the head.

Wap! Wayne had hit him hard.

Doug fell to the floor. Wap! came the second hit. Wap! a third, and Doug was scrambling to get away, looking up at Wayne, who was chasing him with the club. Doug stopped when he got to the middle of the basement floor and reeled up on his rump, his feet in the air.

“Get out of here! Why don’t you just get the money and get out of here? Why don’t you leave us alone?”

Wayne moved the club to his left hand and pulled his gun again, pointing it at Doug.

“Get back against that post. Or I’ll shoot you.”

There was no doubt in Doug’s mind then that Wayne would do it, and it was the first time that it had sunk in that they were in very bad trouble. But for now he obeyed, as Wayne produced another section of white cotton clothesline rope and looped it across Doug’s neck and around the post. Doug feared Wayne was going to bear down and strangle him, but he didn’t. He tied it tight and left it at that. Then he wrapped the rope around Doug’s armpit, tucked it under his shoulder, looped it around the post, and then around the other armpit. As Wayne then tightened up the slack, Doug’s shoulders were anchored to the post, just as his neck and head were securely fastened. Wayne then tied Doug’s feet together, and just as soon as he had bound Doug’s feet, Wayne was gone. The door slammed shut, alerting Kris, and Wayne was bounding back up the stairs.

The single bare bulb cast its harsh light on the rifle by the bench. Doug thought, If I can get loose and get that rifle, I can stop this. He started working his hands.

In the time Kris lay tied to her bed, all she could think about was getting loose so she could jump out the window and get next door or across the street for help. There was a phone on the nightstand, but her hands were tied, and even if she got free, she was going out the window, she told herself. It didn’t occur to her that Doug’s handgun was in the drawer. It was an AMT-Backup, an American-made, stainless steel .22-caliber, semiautomatic long-rifle job that he kept with the clip loaded but nothing in the chamber. The safety was kept off. Thus, to use the gun, all he would have to do is hand operate the slide that would feed a cartridge into the chamber. Kris was trying to work the knots with her fingernails, and she was making some progress when Wayne entered the room.

Wayne didn’t say anything. He gave her a dispassionate look as he walked around the bed, checking the knots and inspecting the gag. Then he left, and she heard the basement door close again.

Doug had discovered that his rope bindings were tied unevenly. One hand was tied very tightly, but on the other the rope was fashioned in a loose loop. He got one loop undone and with his hands parted a little was starting to pull on the knots, trying to gain slack, when the door opened.

Doug pressed his hands together for appearance’s sake. Wayne grabbed him by the arm and pulled him up off the floor, seeing if Doug was still affixed to the post. Then Wayne started to pace at Doug’s feet.

“You gotta be smart. You gotta be smart,” he said. “You’re smarter than they are. You’re gonna pull this off. You gotta think. Now think!

“What are you gonna do? How you gonna do it?” Wayne interrogated himself, giving no acknowledgement of Doug’s presence as he got more agitated, more frenzied, betraying no apparent notice of the rifle that he walked past three times. Wayne was 100 percent into it, and Doug was fading. He could feel the blood trickling down his neck, and his head felt lighter now.

Wayne came around behind Doug and they both suddenly heard a noise upstairs. The bed, which was almost directly above them on the first floor, had moved. Wayne looked up, and in no time was shutting the basement door behind him. Doug worked harder on the ropes.

The racing back and forth—from the basement to the bedroom and back again—seemed to occupy hours. Doug and Kris had lost track of time. All Kris knew was that the basement door had shut again, and Wayne would be back in the bedroom, glaring but not staring directly at her, not saying a word, checking her ropes, and then leaving.

On one trip, she heard him close the overhead garage door. Kris had heard Doug’s cries. She couldn’t hear the words he was saying, but she could hear the voice, and it didn’t sound right.

“Why are you hurting Doug?” she yelled at him when he came in again.

“He was lipping off to me. So I had to,” he blared at her. The words were hard bitten. And Wayne was heading back downstairs.

Kris shuddered, and then began to shake. She realized that she was tied to her bed, wearing nothing more than a cotton nightshirt and her underpants. What if he does something to me? The thought occurred to her for the first time. But just as quickly she blocked it. You’re not going to be any help if you don’t stay calm, she thought. You’ve got to calm down. You’ve got to get out of here. You gotta work these knots, and that’s it!

Wayne was away from Kris for quite awhile, and she had managed to free her left hand. But she was still gripped by the panic that had just overtaken her since Wayne’s last appearance. She didn’t try to undo her right hand with the left, or use the phone. She was trying to untie her feet. With a strong jerk she pulled hard on the loop knot around her right wrist, and it cinched tighter. She also still hadn’t remembered that there was a gun in the nightstand drawer. While not exceptionally handy with firearms, she would have known enough to work the hand slide to load a cartridge, but she didn’t know where the trigger safety was, or whether it was on or off. Plus, she was right handed, and her right hand was still rigged to the bed.

When Wayne returned, after making sure the sound of the moving bed was no problem, Doug watched through a bleary haze as Wayne walked to the basement wall at Doug’s left, standing there for a second, drawing a blank stare.

“I should just put this gun against my own head,” Wayne said matter of factly.

The bed moved again, and Wayne was gone.

Doug didn’t know what to make of the suicidal statement. In a flashing moment of levity, he mused to himself, That’s not a bad idea.

The last time he came downstairs, Wayne hovered behind Doug more than before, and Doug was colliding with the sure knowledge that now they were in some real trouble. But Doug didn’t think Wayne would kill him, and neither did Kris believe that Wayne would go so far. When Wayne pulled the rope around Doug’s throat, he wondered if he would be strangled. When Wayne lurked behind him, he wondered if he would be shot in the back of the head. But each time, Wayne would reappear, facing him, more and more frenzied, promising to call their friends.

“You’re smarter than they are. You’re smarter,” Wayne rattled.

Doug knew that he was losing consciousness, that he was running out of time. He was worried about Kris more than anything. It was harder and harder to keep his eyes focused on Wayne. Then Doug couldn’t see him at all. Wayne had gone around behind him, and that was when Doug felt it. It was like a punch to his chest. Doug looked up and Wayne was in his face, down low, with his hand on Doug’s chest. Wayne was stooped oddly to Doug’s right side, it seemed, and when he looked down he could see why.

The tip of the oak handle of a knife was sticking out of his chest, wrapped in Wayne’s brown-gloved hand.

“OUSHHHHH …” came the escaping air, released in a croaky, rushing sound as Doug’s diaphragm was severed. It was a sidearm thrust with a Chicago cutlery knife that came in just underneath Doug’s heart.

Doug’s life flipped over, and he looked up at Wayne.

Do you know what you have done? You have just killed me! his mind said to himself. Doug’s mouth was open, but he couldn’t talk. He couldn’t make an noise. He had accepted his death, and it came in a simultaneous moment of total disbelief. In slow motion, Doug raised his eyes to Wayne’s, and he looked him right in the eye. He saw nothing: no glee, no remorse, just a dead gaze.

Doug slumped, hanging limp in the ropes. He couldn’t move. Wayne then removed the knife, with Doug watching as all eight inches of the smooth, narrow carbon blade glided out of his body. Wayne then put the bloodied knife next to Doug’s pant cuff, which Wayne held between his thumb and forefinger, and wiped the blade clean.

Doug had never felt death before, and he also had never known the kind of rage that overtook his whole being—at the sight of Wayne cleaning the knife blade on his pant cuff. Having killed him, and now with this nonchalant, callous gesture, Wayne had conveyed how little it meant to him. As if punctuating his disinterest, Wayne just walked away. Doug’s eyes were stuck wide open. He could see Wayne leave, and see that he was no longer in a hurry, and that he didn’t even bother to close the basement door behind him.

Doug sat alone dying in the basement of the house they had worked so hard to get. His eyes stared outward. He had always believed that when someone died with their eyes wide open, like this, it meant that they had died in the wrong place. Christ, I’m going to die with my eyes open! Look at this, he thought. And I’m hanging. And I have no control. He felt a stirring in his bowels, and almost lost control, but didn’t. Now he was seeing the room get smaller, as if he were looking through a peephole. The edges were fuzzy. Here you go, you’re dying, he thought. The next thing that went through his mind was what a mess his shop was, that nobody was going to be able to figure out who belongs to which guns. Then he thought about Kris, and he hung for a few seconds as the room started turning to black, when he suddenly sat up. It was an immediate, jack-in-the-box move. Surprised, he felt a return of strength and coherence. Okay, I ain’t dead yet!

Kris had untied her feet with her free left hand and was still tugging on the rope around her right hand when Wayne walked in.

“What are you doing! You called the cops, didn’t ya?”

Frantic, Kris could see that it might have looked that way.

“No, I didn’t call the cops,” she said, thinking fast. “You’d have heard me.”

“I can’t leave you like this. I’ve got to tie you better,” he said, moving around the bed to find a better place to secure her left hand.

Downstairs, Doug was getting free. When he turned his head to the side, he created new slack in the ropes around his torso and throat. He wiggled free of them and gave a giant pull to slip his hands out. Okay, I’m gonna die. It happens. But this guy’s going with me.

Doug stood up and walked directly over to the bench and the rifle. He figured he had anywhere from ten to twenty seconds, and he based that on his hunting experience. He had shot many deer in the chest, and sometimes they’ll run that long before dropping. He also figured there was only enough time to load one cartridge, not just because he was now that wounded deer, but also because Wayne might return any second. He drew the cleaning patch from the barrel, shoved a single round into the chamber, closed the lever, freed the safety, and closed the bolt.

Now. Now it’s even, he said to himself as he went for the first set of stairs, silent as he could. He stopped at the bottom of the landing that led up to the living room. He knew he had to get Wayne to come to him. He couldn’t risk confronting Wayne in the bedroom, where Kris was hostage.

Doug was too beaten to know whether he kicked the wall with his foot or knocked against it with his elbow, but he knew as soon as Wayne heard any noise, he would come running, and he did.

Doug was set. He knew Wayne was coming. The light from the kitchen would be momentarily eclipsed as he approached the top of the landing. The sound of his running footsteps would tell Doug, too. And he knew that Wayne wouldn’t be able to see him until he turned around the half-wall partition at the top of the stairs. He would aim for the middle of the body.

Wayne came running, and when his wide-open eyes seized on the picture of a bloody, beaten Doug Wells, a dead man who was hunkered, aimed, ready to fire, he stopped in his fast-forward tracks. For only a second, there was fear in Wayne’s face, but the face turned as the body began to pull away. Doug fired. The Savage 250 slug tore through Wayne’s side, exited across the living room past the television, through the wall of the house into the night. Doug didn’t hear the gunfire, or smell the discharge. But he could see that Wayne was gone again.

I missed! God, I missed him, is all he thought, but in the same split second he heard a wounded Wayne fall to the floor, behind the partition, beyond Doug’s view.

“Oh, God … I’m a dead man!” was all Kris heard after the booming report of the rifle. It sounded like it came from the basement, and she assumed Doug had been shot. She knew it was Wayne’s voice, but she also thought he was saying it to fool her, to let her think he, not Doug, had been shot, and the room went black. She passed out.

Doug clambered up the steps and encountered Wayne, who was on his hands and knees, trying to get up. Holding the Savage by its barrel, Doug slammed the stock down on the back of Wayne’s head. Wayne was flattened. Doug hit him again and again, hammering Wayne about the head and neck. On all fours, Wayne moved in a bear crawl down the hallway toward the bedroom, with Doug right behind him, swinging away, pounding and pounding and pounding.

As Wayne got to the bedroom doorway, Doug licked him a good one, breaking the rifle’s wooden stock. Splinters flew, and the lever action was thrust open, ejecting the single shell casing into the bedroom. Wayne rolled onto his back and covered his face with his right arm, and as Doug prepared to deliver the next thundering blow, Wayne yelled out.

“Doug stop! Don’t do this! Please stop!”

Doug hit him again, and again until Wayne was forced into a tight corner of the room next to the nightstand at the head of the bed, and then he hit him some more.

Kris came to. Her husband was raining blows on Wayne, who was cowered in the corner, and with her right hand still tied to the bed, she started to punch at Wayne, screaming, “You sonuvabitch! You sonuvabitch!”

Doug didn’t have a clear target with Kris now flailing at Wayne’s chest, and he could see that Wayne was moving his hands lower, toward his own gun.

“Get out of the way. I can’t hit him,” Doug said as he hurled Kris back onto the bed. When he looked back at Wayne, the revolver was pointed at him. Doug swung his rifle at the gun and ducked just as Wayne pulled the trigger. The slug went into the ceiling and through the roof and out into the sky. Doug’s adrenaline-stoked brain made it clear to him that Wayne could finish them both off if he weren’t stopped now, so he clubbed Wayne with all the fury he could muster. Wayne fired again, and Doug’s foot went wild. The bullet entered above the knee and exited three inches below the crotch, and was stopped by his blue jeans. The sting woke him even more to battle. He started thinking about how to widen his attack strategy. His single-minded approach—just pounding away at Wayne—wasn’t working, because Wayne wasn’t dead yet. But there was no time. He hit him again, swinging wildly, catching the nightstand lamp and sending it flying. The bulb shattered.

The room was now pitch black, and Doug continued his feverish swinging in Wayne’s direction. He felt something hit against the rifle. Then the darkness was marked by the muzzle flash of a third gunshot. Doug knew Wayne had to cock the single-action six every time, and he instinctively seized this interim moment to leap across the bed, reaching for the gun in the nightstand, the AMT-Backup. He chambered a round and moved the gun to his left hand, pointing it at where he thought Wayne was, and flipped on the overhead light.

As Doug watched Wayne, he moved the gun to his right hand. Wayne was slouched down, his eyes partly rolled up into his head. He was wheezing. His legs were quivering. Wayne had been shot in the head, just above and behind the ear, with his own gun. The Ruger’s barrel had been jammed into the side of Wayne’s head at the moment of fire in the split second after one of Doug’s repeated swats with the rifle had hooked Wayne’s hand and deflected the gun into a suicide lock. After a few seconds, Doug came around to the front of the bed and told Kris to get Wayne’s gun off the floor.

“Throw it up onto the bed,” he said, seeing that the hammer was down. It wasn’t cocked and ready to fire again. Doug removed the clip from his semiautomatic, and removed the cartridge from the chamber, then placed it on the bed along with the Savage and Wayne’s revolver.

“I don’t know how long I’ve got,” he said, lying down on his back across the bed. “Call 911.”

Kris had to call twice. The first time she either held the phone upside down or had called the wrong number. She dialed again. It was 1:22 A.M.

“Someone’s tried to kill my husband,” she spit out the words, then hung up and moved back over to Doug, applying contact pressure on his chest to halt the bleeding.

The phone rang.

“Don’t hang up,” the police dispatcher told her. Apparently Kris had either given a name or address when she called. She couldn’t recall. “How’s the other guy?” the dispatcher quizzed.

“I don’t know and I don’t care. Just get someone here for Doug.”

Wayne had been fatally wounded by the Savage slug that passed through his midsection. The slug severed the renal artery, hit the spleen, the pancreas, and the right lung and liver, clipping the ribs on its way in and out. The autopsy would conclude that Wayne would have had less than a minute to live after such a gunshot wound. As a result of Doug’s seconds-long counterattack, Wayne’s body from his knees to the top of his head had suffered some sixty bashes, cuts, scrapes, and abrasions, which had been meted out by Doug at a fierce rate of nearly one blow per second. The slug from the contact shot to the head traveled through Wayne’s brain and lodged inside his skull on the other side.

Sheriff’s Deputies Martin Spring and Gerald Crouch were having coffee at the Four B’s Restaurant on the other side of town when they got the call of a shooting in progress at 100 Parker Court. Deputy Vincent Sparacino also responded.

Deputy Spring never drove as fast as he did that night. Deputy Crouch was in a second cruiser, and Deputy Sparacino in a third. An ambulance was dispatched at the same time, but was told to hold back from the house until it received an all-clear. All three police cars converged on the house at the same time. They went right to the front door and walked in. Sundance barked as the three men stepped up to the living room. The first thing they saw was the tipped-over couch and a blood splotch stretching across the living room. Down the hall in the bedroom, they found Kris hovering over her bloodied husband, who was splayed on the bed. In the corner, crouched, shaking and twitching, was Wayne. Guns lay on the bed.

First they checked on Doug, then Kris, then Wayne. Then the ambulance was summoned.

Deputy Spring was taken back when his eyes fell on the battered, bleeding, and dying body of his grade school and high school classmate, Wayne. Deputy Spring had, in fact, seen him only two weeks before, when Wayne had delivered furniture to his house. The oversized blade Wayne wore that day on his belt reminded Deputy Spring that Wayne always carried a knife in school, but still he thought it was unusual for him to be wearing such a big knife just to deliver his furniture.

Doug was carried out first. When they brought Wayne out, the paramedics lost their footing in a sight depression in the front yard and Wayne was dumped from the stretcher.

“Are you okay?” someone joked to Wayne as he was picked up, his legs still twitching and jerking, to be loaded in next to Doug. “Leave him for awhile,” someone else said.

But they didn’t. They loaded him in next to Doug and headed for Missoula Community Hospital.

For the span of a semiconscious moment, as Doug lay on his back in a hallway just beyond an operating room in the emergency ward, his nightmare returned. The knife wound, which besides severing his diaphragm, had nipped one of his lungs. The doctors were waiting for the lung to collapse. He had been resting there for close to three hours now.

At one point he sat up and was shocked to discover he was all alone. He could see partway into one of the nearby operating rooms, where Wayne’s feet were clearly visible on a table that was surrounded by doctors and nurses.

“His vitals aren’t all that bad,” the nurse was saying. “His respiration is there. His pulse is quick, but strong.”

“He’s okay,” another one chimed in.

Doug could feel gravity pulling him back down, and he closed his eyes.

“I didn’t even kill the sonuvabitch!”

Kris came over to him.

“Wayne’s dead,” she said.

Doug sat up again.

“Are you sure? Go check and make sure. They just said, ‘He’s fine.’”

“They were talking about you, hon.” She patted him. “They’re just finishing up on Wayne.”

After the scene was secured, Deputy Spring started to search for Wayne’s vehicle, looking for any sign that he may have had an accomplice. Deputies ran down the registrations on every vehicle within a block and a half of the Wells house, and it was Deputy Spring who found the maroon Toyota four-by-four pickup—Wayne’s truck. It was locked. Through the camper shell window he could see a large cardboard furniture box on a pallet. It struck him as a curious and morbid object to find in Wayne’s truck, given what had just happened.

Deputies were dispatched to Rick Mace’s home, because Kris had told them that Wayne may have done something to Rick. When a sleepy-eyed Rick answered the front door, all he was told was that somebody had been concerned about him. Rick pressed for more, but that’s all he could be told, the deputies said. He would learn more in the morning. After the deputies left, Rick got a cold feeling about his younger brother, and he called 911. Again, he was told he would have to wait until morning to learn more.

A few hours later, when Wayne didn’t show up for work, Rick didn’t imagine any connection between the puzzling visit from the police in the middle of the night. It didn’t even cross his mind. But by the time the rest of the Conlin’s staff began to wander in to work, it became clear that something was up, since Kelly Bruce, the assistant manager, was being so secretive.

Though no one knew it yet, Kris had already called Kelly to tell her what had happened.

“Doug’s in the hospital. Wayne attacked us,” Kris told her, adding that Doug was going to be all right.

“How’s Wayne?” Kelly inquired.

“He’s dead.”

Kelly, stunned by the news, wasn’t sure what she could tell the staff and what she shouldn’t. So she kept it to herself, even when sheriff’s deputies showed up to talk to Rick Mace. Next, a television news crew arrived, seeking information, but no one knew anything.

“Kelly,” Joyce pleaded. “You’ve got to tell somebody something.”

“Well I just don’t know what I can tell you and what I can’t,” she quivered.

“Is it Kris and Doug? Could it be Wayne? How is Wayne involved in this?”

All anyone could figure was that whatever had happened must have involved Kris and Doug and Wayne. At noon, the radio was reporting that a Missoula couple had been attacked in their home by an intruder, who had been shot. Joyce ran out to the Heidelhaus, a restaurant on the strip, and picked up a copy of the Noon News, a free transcript of the radio newscast that was a popular read at lunch counters. They all studied the sparse account, which didn’t identify the couple or the intruder. They all tried to put it together.

Sandy McManus, who was the only person at work who knew that Sheila was at Brad Flaherty’s cabin on Flathead Lake, called her. Brad answered the phone.

“Who knows you’re up here?” he said, handing Sheila the phone.

Sandy started to ask Sheila about some customers whom Sheila had waited on before. It seemed odd to Sheila. Was Sandy just making this up? Finally she interrupted.

“Sandy, why are you calling me up here?”

“Something really bad has happened. We don’t know what it is. Listen to the news.”