NINE

PUSHING open the door, Lee took a single step outside, and a blur of movement in the moonlight caused him to stop abruptly, one foot off the ground, to instinctively raise his arms to ward off whatever was there.

Logan swung the branch in the way that he imagined Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio or Yogi Berra would have swung a bat for the New York Yankees, back in the day.  The stranger’s head was the ball, and he had every intention of knocking it out of the park.

The dry branch snapped as it came into contact with Lee’s left forearm, not his head, and his radius was fractured by the force of the blow.  He could see a tall silhouetted figure standing in front of him, and self-preservation kicked in and he reached for the Heckler & Koch pistol that was tucked in the waistband of his pants.

Logan punched the remaining foot-long length of wood into the man’s stomach and then hit him hard in the face with his fist, to watch as he doubled up and was propelled back against the outhouse door, where he dropped in a sitting position against it.  Lee’s head sagged down, chin on chest.  He was dazed.  Logan hit him again hard in the left temple with enough force to ensure that he was unconscious, before bending down to remove the pistol from under the inert man’s belt.

Logan turned to walk across to the cabin, planning to walk in and take Mitchell by surprise, aim the gun at him and at very least retrieve the keys to his Chevy and take the money that had been stolen from the bank.  He would then phone the State Police and tell them where Mitchell and his accomplice could be found, after he had bound them both up back to back.

The cabin door opened before Logan had taken two paces, and was then slammed shut.

Jack had seen the shadowy shape of a man with a gun in his hand and knew that Lee was either unconscious or dead.  He instantly went into siege mode.  The windows were already shuttered, and the front door had a length of four by two across it, slotted into steel brackets.  He quickly placed a plank in brackets bolted either side of the rear door, extinguished the oil lamp and felt safe for the time being, though not completely out of danger.  As far as he was concerned there was an armed man outside who was a clear and present danger, possibly with accomplices.

With the pump action now in hand, Jack shouted, “Who are you, and what do you want?”

“I’m the good Samaritan that stopped to help you and got shot at for my trouble,” Logan said.  “You should have let me get closer if you wanted to kill me with that popgun.”

“How did you know where we were?  Don’t answer that.  Will must have led you here.  Is he with you?”

“He’s at a safe distance, Mitchell.”

“Like I said, what do you want?”

“The keys to my vehicle and the money that you stole.”

“In your dreams.”

“OK, no problem. I’ll call the police and let them deal with you.”

“That won’t happen.  You’re in a dead zone.  There’s no signal out here.”

“Fine.  We’ve got a standoff.”

“And I’ve got dry rations, canned food and water, and can wait you out.”

“That isn’t how it’ll go down,” Logan said.  “If you don’t throw the keys and money out within the next five minutes, I’ll set fire to the cabin.”

“Do what you have to stranger, or make a deal.”

“What kind of deal do you have in mind?”

“I’ll give you half the money, but keep your vehicle, and you and that no-good stepson of mine can walk out of here with over two hundred grand as compensation for the trouble that I’ve inadvertently put you to.”

“I’ll think it over,” Logan said.  “Maybe I’ll just hotwire that old Chevy, dump your pal in the trunk and drive to wherever I can get a signal.”

“I can see the side of the vehicle.  Go anywhere near it and I’ll blow the shit out of you.”

Logan said nothing, just made his way back to where Will came out from behind a large boulder, that he had moved to, away from spindly creosote bushes that offered little protection from the rising wind or any shooting that he had expected to ensue.

“What happened?” Will said.

“The guy by the name of Lee is leant up against the outhouse, either unconscious or dead, I’m not sure or care which.  And your stepdad is holed up in the cabin.  We talked, and he offered me a couple hundred big ones to walk away and leave my vehicle for him to make a getaway in.”

“Did you go for it?”

“I said I’d give it some thought.”

“Don’t trust him Mr. Logan, he won’t give you the money, and if he gets the chance, he’ll shoot you dead.  And me too, now that I’ve led you here.”

“Just Logan, remember.  And as for trust, it has to be earned, and Mitchell hasn’t earned any from me.  You need to tread softly around strangers, Will.  People are in many instances not what they pretend to be.”

“You seem a little…a little distrustful of everyone.”

“It’s safer to trust no one until you really get to know them, son.  Seems in this day and age you have to be continually on guard against those that want a lot more from you than friendship.”

“What do you plan on doing?”

“The cabin appears to be locked up tight, and the shutters are closed.  I’ll let him sweat on it for a while, then go and hotwire the Chevy if he hasn’t left the key in the ignition. We can then drive off and find a place where we can get a signal and call the police.”

Will shook his head and said, “He’ll see you coming.  There are horizontal slits on all four sides of the cabin at shoulder height, that I’d guess have been there since the cabin was built.  Jack uses them to shoot rabbits and deer out of.”

“Then it’ll be a long night for him as well as us.  Just before dawn I’ll get up close to the other side of the cabin and put a couple of bullets through one of the slits, just to let him know that it works both ways.”

“Why don’t we just walk out of here, make a call and let the police handle it?”

“Because he made it personal, Will, and I prefer, rightly or wrongly, to deal with trouble myself.”

Will was a little in awe of the big guy, who seemed to have no fear of being caught up in a life or death situation, that was of partly his own making for deciding to be confrontational with Jack.

Logan found a depression in the scrubland that was backed by a ridge of low cliffs that protected them from the wind.  He didn’t worry about Mitchell taking off in the SUV, because he would assume that if he opened the cabin door he would be shot at.  Paranoia in an enemy was sometimes a great ally, scrambling their ability to be rational and make sound decisions.

“This is no good,” Will said, remaining standing as Logan sat down cross-legged, seemingly content to spend several hours out in the desert air, which was cooling rapidly as night took over from day.  “Freezing our butts off in the middle of freakin’ nowhere is crazy.  There are all kinds of snakes, scorpions and spiders crawling around.”

“What do you suggest; that I set fire to the cabin without a can of gas or any way of igniting it?”

“No, but doing nothing until dawn won’t change anything.”

“It’ll keep him awake and on edge, and that gives us the advantage.”

Will remained standing, staring down at Logan for the next five minutes.

“OK, OK,” Logan said.  “I’ll try something else.”

“What?”

“I’m not sure yet” Logan said as he got to his feet.  “Stay here and wait until I get back.”

Walking west, Logan circled round and climbed up a low rise that was directly above and behind the cabin.  Treading softly and avoiding stepping on dry twigs that had fallen from the sparse stand of desert willows, he came to a stop at the rear of the outhouse and could hear a low moaning, which he knew was emanating from the guy by the name of Lee Roche; the only surviving accomplice of Mitchell.

“Can you hear me, Lee?” Logan said in a low voice that he knew would not carry to the cabin.

“Who are you?” Lee said as he cupped his pounding head in his hands, prior to throwing up the partly digested meal that he had enjoyed earlier at the Denny’s in Payson.

“I’m the guy that Mitchell shot at before you two fuckwits stole my Chevy and took off.  What I want you to do now is tell me if the vehicle is unlocked with the key still in the ignition.”

“Yeah,” Lee said as he fought against dizziness and waves of nausea.  He was positive that he was concussed, and that he had possibly suffered a fractured skull.

“Are there any other properties in the area?” Logan said.

“Just one; an old ranch house about a couple miles up the trail leading down here.  I don’t think anyone lives there.”

“Is that the only way in or out?”

“By vehicle, yeah.”

“OK, stand up, go over to the cabin and get Mitchell to open the door to let you in.  Do it now.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Lee said.

“If you don’t, I’ll shoot you with your own gun,” Logan bluffed, having absolutely no intention of shooting an unarmed man who was no threat to him.

Lee levered himself up on to his knees, then a standing position, and staggered across to the cabin like a drunk, two steps forward and one step back as he almost collapsed against the door, to rap on it with his knuckles and say in a shaky but loud voice, “Open up, Jack.”

There was a pause of more than twenty seconds, and then the door opened, but Logan couldn’t see Mitchell.  He had a choice, shoot Roche in the leg to drop him in the open doorway, or not.  He took a deep breath, loosed off a shot and Roche fell forward and down.  Keeping the gun trained on the doorway, he could do no more than watch as Roche was dragged into the darkness and the door was closed again.  Not a lot had been achieved, apart from Logan knowing that the key was still in the Chevy, and that there was a dwelling nearby where he and Will could spend the night.  He was in control of the situation.  Roche was at very least concussed, and now had a slug in his thigh.  The two bank robbers were pinned down and wouldn’t risk making a break for it, believing that if they did, they would be shot dead.