Clouds covered the moon, and darkness gulped up everything around Marty until his whole world became the next few inches he could crawl down the hill. He pushed the thoughts of Deb and the boys to a small secret place in the back of his mind. Cold stole all the feeling from his hands. If what he feared came true, he doubted he could curl a stiff finger around the shotgun’s trigger. He grabbed the next snowy handful and pulled himself forward.
Above the edge of the depression his body made in the snow, hard kernels of wind-whipped ice brushed over the covered ground and found the tender places around his eyes and lips not covered by the ski mask.
Far out on the prairie, perhaps a mile from the hillside, dots of white from headlights told him how precious the next minutes would be.
Could he save the troopers? Could he save himself?
A swirl of wind brought a wisp of smoke. Marty squinted though the harsh sting, and his tears froze at the slits in the fabric around his eyes. Then the warmth brushed across his face, teasing with false comfort for only an instant.
His goal on that lonely hill—the stovepipe—was only an arm’s length away.
He eased forward, daring the snow not to crunch under his knees and hands, paused, and strained for any sound from below him. As carefully as he’d ever done anything in his life, Marty peeled off his ski mask, packed it full of snow, and smashed the wet bundle over the chimney.
The snow evaporated around his fingers. Hot steam teased his nose and water hissed. The first warmth in hours lured him to hold his hands close for a second more, but he rolled back away from the stovepipe and kicked more snow into the opening.
Will I have to kill him?
Marty pulled the shotgun close to his chest.
* * *
At the sound above him, Ray-Ray turned from the slit in his fortress’s log walls and stared in the darkness above his head. Dust drifted down onto his face.
Somebody’s up there.
He pointed the muzzle of his rifle at the ceiling and thumbed back the hammer.
One more noise, you son of a bitch.
Seconds stretched. The blackness thickened around him until a splash of water showered down the stovepipe. Droplets danced across the hot metal. Steam merged with smoke and filled the chamber.
Ray-Ray’s eyes clamped shut. He buried his face in the dirty canvas at the crook of his elbow and gagged for breath.
Blindly he waved the rifle at the roughhewn boards that made the ceiling and jerked the trigger. A white flame rocketed from the barrel, and the sound fused with the smoke and steam around him, and all at once, Ray-Ray went blind and deaf.
* * *
Birdie caught hold of the tips of sagebrush that poked through the snow and held tight. For every three steps she climbed up the hill she’d slid back one. Marty had disappeared over the top, and the breeze stole away the sounds of his hands and knees on the snow.
A gust of wind cut through her coat, shirt, and long underwear. A dozen goose bumps rose on every square inch of her skin. Birdie was sure that hell had frozen over and at any minute the devil himself would hand her a pair of ice skates and invite her to follow him through his icy inferno.
She cussed Ray-Ray for what he had done. Said a few choice words to Marty for telling her not to follow him and saved the vilest for herself. For not listening to him. Birdie sucked in a breath of the frigid air, braced herself to start to climb again, and whispered out a string of the foulest words she’d ever said all at once.
A blast rocked the night.
Rifle shot. Ray-Ray.
That was all it could be.
Her lips quivered as she took in everything around her.
Marty?
Birdie moved faster than she knew she could. Up the hillside. Feet sliding, fingers grabbing for anything she could hang on to. Knees and palms in the snow. Clawing for the Glock on her hip.
Not because of the sound of the rifle.
Because she’d heard a man moan.
* * *
Ray-Ray struggled up from his knees. A foot slipped on the wet floor. He lurched toward the hot stove. His arm went out to stop his fall.
Hot steel bit into his hand. The stove rocked off the stones he’d set it on, and a stew of wet, smoldering wood spilled onto his boots. Acrid smoke funneled into his nose and stung his eyes. He tried to fill his lungs, but the air around him was thick and gritty, and his throat closed and lungs rebelled.
Instinct worked the lever of his rifle and racked another shell into its chamber.
Leave me alone.
He wanted to scream it and kill each of the devils that drove him to this.
Everything in his stomach filled his mouth. Ray-Ray doubled over and spewed the contents on the floor. Air wouldn’t come. He threw himself against the crude door on the side of his fortress.
Hinges squeaked. Lag bolts groaned against timber.
He fumbled for the cross bolt and tumbled outside into the snow. Frozen tree limbs snapped under him. He sucked in the cool air. The snow quenched the burn on his hand.
But Ray-Ray ran. Away from the place that was supposed to keep him safe. Down the hill through the snow to the tangles of trees and brush in the bottom of the Butt Notch. To where he knew best.
Leave me alone.
Leave me alone.
Or you’ll make me kill every one of you.
* * *
Marty’s ears rang from the gunshot. He waited for the pain to take over his body, and deep inside he knew what had happened.
He did it. He shot me.
Emptiness filled his chest.
Stay calm. Think. Think.
They’d taught him what to do at the academy. One morning an old lawman peeled back the front of his shirt and rubbed a shiny purple scar just below his shoulder. Every green kid wannabe in the room had sat stock-still. The old man looked at each face one at a time and said, “If you can think, you’re alive. Find the hole and start first aid. If you’re lucky, your partner’s already radioed for backup and the EMTs. If you’re all by yourself”—he was looking at Marty–“you’re the only sumbitch that can save ya.”
Marty knew the stories about gunshot wounds.
You don’t feel pain at first. The impact shuts down your nervous system.
He lay still. Wishing he’d waited for the troopers.
The shotgun stayed glued to his hands. He let it drop to the side. Still on his back, Marty flexed both hands.
Fingers and arms work.
He pulled off his gloves and ran his hands over his stomach, expecting warm blood to bubble up from a gut shot.
Nothing.
He found his belt buckle and inched his fingertips lower.
Please, no. Not there.
But the fellas were okay.
Thank you, God.
He raised himself onto his elbows. The clouds above stirred, and brushstrokes of gray moonlight parted the shadows over his legs and feet. He bent his right knee, set that foot flat on the ground, and leaned forward to examine the dark blotch on his pants above where his left ankle stung so.
He imagined his foot hanging from fibers of skin, and muscle, and shattered bone.
What would he be if his leg was gone?
He made up his mind right then that if it was bad he’d lay down and let the blood run out of him until he was dead.
Deb didn’t deserve a one-legged gimp.
He didn’t want to touch his leg, but he had to. He held his breath and moved his fingers closer to the dark spot above his ankle.
Find the blood.
But there was none. Black dirt covered the cuff of his pants. One of his fingers found a ragged hole the bullet had torn through the denim. When he probed further, he found a wooden splinter, no bigger than a matchstick, had stabbed through his sock and into the flesh on his lower leg.
He missed me. I’m not shot.
He pulled the sliver out and the cold air on the raw flesh felt good.
Thousands of thank yous filled his mind and he said prayers to the God that had watched out for him.
He climbed to his feet. Both feet.
Dark smoke billowed from an open doorway below. Fresh tracks led away from the door, and Marty spotted Ray-Ray running down the hill.
* * *
Birdie made the top of the hill on her hands and knees. Faint fingers of smoke filtered up against the dark sky. She found Marty’s ski mask wadded over the top of the metal pipe and could see from marks in the snow where he had lain on his back. His tracks led down the hill.
She gritted her teeth and followed.
* * *
Ray-Ray slapped branches away from his face, lowered a shoulder, and bulled his way through the tamaracks along the creek. The moon peeked through the clouds, turning the night a silvery hue. Ice splintered under his boots and freezing water soaked his pant legs and socks.
Some government man was following him. He could hear him fight his way through the brush.
In the shadows just ahead, a fallen cottonwood trunk leaned into the tangle of willows. He splashed through the frozen, swampy ground to the tree, ducked under, and turned back the way he came. He fed another cartridge into the magazine and pointed the big rifle at where his tracks crossed a clear spot in the brush patch.
Come and get me, you bastards.
* * *
Marty stopped where the tamaracks thinned and opened into a clearing. The wind had chased the clouds away, and the night was nearly as bright as day. He held the shotgun tighter to his chest and flipped the safety on and off with his thumb. Something didn’t feel right. Hair all along the back of his neck prickled.
He lowered the shotgun and swept the muzzle from side to side over the trail in front of him.
This had gone too far. Whatever happened if the troopers found him, Ray-Ray had it coming to him. And Marty cussed himself for thinking he could do anything about it.
Deb’ll kill me again if I get shot out here.
He lowered the shotgun and backed away.
“That’s far enough.” A voice boomed from the shadows.
Marty’s insides went watery. “That you, Ray-Ray?” he croaked. “It’s me, Marty. I come to help you.”
“With a shotgun?”
“Look, the state troopers are on their way. It’d be better if you came with me.” Marty squinted, trying to find where the man was hiding.
“Better for who?”
Marty knew the Winchester was aimed at his belly.
“Drop that gun,” Ray-Ray called out.
In all his training Marty had been told never to give up a gun. Ray-Ray had already fired at him. No matter how quick he could be with the shotgun, Ray-Ray’s gun was already aimed. If Marty didn’t do what Ray-Ray wanted, all Ray-Ray had to do was pull the trigger.
Marty let the shotgun slide from his hands.
“Now the pistol. I can see it under your coat.”
Marty’s only chance was to keep the man talking. “Listen, Ray-Ray, the shotgun belongs to the county. I don’t care if it gets scratched up, but the pistol’s mine, and I’m still payin’ off the credit card bill. How about I just lay it down?” Marty raised his jacket with his right hand, reached across with his left, and lifted his forty-five out the holster with his thumb and little finger. He held it up so he was sure that Ray-Ray could see he meant no harm. “I’m gonna put it down here so it doesn’t get snow on it.” He bent his knees and lowered himself. He put the pistol on top of a clump of weeds.
“You all alone, Marty?”
“Yeah. I swear it.”
“I got no reason not to trust you, right now. Don’t give me one.”
The brush rattled, and not ten yards away the ghostly outline of the man materialized near a fallen tree.
“That’s a big gun you got, Ray-Ray.”
“Big enough to beat a man to death, not worth shootin’.” Ray-Ray pulled back his shoulders and drew up to every bit of his height. A moonbeam rested on his face.
“Am I worth shootin’, Ray-Ray?”
“That’s gonna be up to you.”
* * *
The crashing in the brush stopped. Muffled voices drifted back in the night. Birdie strained to hear what they were saying. But it was just faint garbles.
She pulled her pistol out from under her coat, double-checked to be sure there was a cartridge in the chamber, and tiptoed into the brushy jumble.
* * *
Despite the cold all around him, sweat trickled down Marty’s forehead as if it were as sunny as a Fourth of July afternoon.
“Leave me alone.” Ray-Ray’s voice was just a harsh whisper. “Your kinda law don’t mean nothin’ to me.”
Marty had been right. The rifle was pointed at his belt buckle. His mouth went dry, and his tongue scraped the roof of his mouth. “You need to put down your gun and come with me. Sheriff needs to ask you a few questions.”
Slowly, Ray-Ray lowered the muzzle of his rifle a few inches until it trained on Marty’s knees. “Sheriff send papers?” The clouds stirred, and a shadow hid the man’s face.
“Papers?”
“A warrant, damn it. I know my rights.” Moonlight flashed on his teeth and Marty was certain Ray-Ray had a smile on his face. “You ever read the Constitution, Marty?”
“What are you talkin’ about?”
“The Constitution, fool. The laws you swore to uphold.”
“This has nothin’—”
“It has everythin’ to do with right here and now. I asked you a question. You read the Constitution of these United States?”
Marty wasn’t sure he ever had. He knew about the Fifth Amendment. He had a little speech printed on a card he was supposed to read if he had to question someone after an arrest. It meant the perp could decide not to talk and he had to have a lawyer if he wanted one. He knew the second was about the right to own a gun, and he thought the first had something to do with free speech. Somewhere in there was something about how no one could tell you what church to go to or if you had to go at all. The rest was just little bitty print.
“This doesn’t have anythin’ to do with the Constitution,” Marty said.
The muzzle of Ray-Ray’s gun bobbed up and down, and the smile in the shadows disappeared. With each word his voice grew louder until he shrieked, “This has everythin’ to do with it.”
He tried to recall all the training he’d had on how to talk to suspects under stress, but it blurred in his mind. He struggled to make the next words out of his mouth sound calm and even. “Listen, Ray-Ray, we can work this out.”
Ray-Ray waved his rifle in a wide circle. In the dark, Marty couldn’t be sure where the muzzle came to a stop, but he guessed it now pointed at his face. Marty took a half-step backward.
* * *
Birdie stalked as close as she dared. She braced her Glock on the trunk of a twisted Russian olive tree and studied the two men. Ray-Ray’s voice grew louder, and he raised his rifle. Birdie took a deep breath and put the pistol sights square on the man’s chest. But when Marty stepped back, he blocked any shot she’d have to save him.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
She ducked under the tree’s branches and stalked closer.
* * *
“Calm down, Ray-Ray.” Marty knew it was a stupid thing to say as soon as the words left his mouth.
“No.” Ray-Ray raged.
Marty tried again. “We can work things out. Listen—”
“You’re gonna listen to me.” Ray-Ray’s voice boomed, and he cocked the rifle. “Then we’ll do what has to be done here.”
Marty knew his only chance was to keep Ray-Ray talking until he could think of something. “What you got to say?”
“They don’t want people like me.”
“Who—”
“Listen to me.” The voice went as still as the night around them. “The government of this country don’t want people like me that think and do for themselves. They want everybody the same. Earn the same money. Nobody works harder than anybody else. Just do what they want you to do.” The gun jerked in the old man’s hands. “I can’t be that way.”
A shiny spot at the muzzle of Ray-Ray’s Winchester flashed in the moonlight, the forest faded away, and all Marty could see was the muzzle of the gun. He bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood.
Then Ray-Ray’s voice changed. The demands became a plea.
No. A prayer.
“Somewhere, we got things all screwed up.” Ray-Ray fought for his next words. “The Constitution says what the people allow the government to do for them. It’s not about the government makin’ people do things. You gotta read it, Marty.”
Ray-Ray stepped into the moonlight. The muzzle of the Winchester was ten feet from Marty’s face. In a voice made raspy by four decades of Marlboros, Ray-Ray whispered, “One side gives you more rules and regulations and promises to take care of you from your first cry until they pound nails in your coffin. The other makes up just as many new laws and calls it the Patriot Act.” He spit on the ground and his voice rose again. “I don’t want no help. I’ll make my choices and take my chances. If I fail it’s on me. I won’t come cryin’ for someone to clean up any mess I got myself into.” He jabbed the rifle at Marty’s face.
“Think what happened here the past few days. The power of the county, state, and army helicopters chasin’ after one man ’cause they think I didn’t buy a state license to hunt deer on my own land. How much tax money got spent up? Leave me alone, Marty. And tell all of them to leave me alone.” Ray-Ray’s proud shoulders slumped, and he lowered the gun.
Marty took a deep breath. “Ray-Ray? This ain’t about any huntin’ license. Boy named Jimmy Riley was killed, and some of Andy Puckett’s buffalo were shot. Coach and a girl from town got killed, too. Sheriff thinks you know somethin’ about it?”
“Huh?” Cloudy mist flowed out of his nostrils.
“Three people killed? Know anything?”
“I ain’t been to town in months. I don’t know nothin’ about a dead boy or buffalo.”
A gust of wind drove the cold deep in his chest. A cloud of snowflakes stirred from the trees. Marty looked into the darkness on one side and then the other. “It’s my job to take you in, Ray-Ray.”
“I’m not goin’ with you.” Ray-Ray tightened his bare fingers around his gun.
“I believe you didn’t have anythin’ to with those folks gettin’ killed. But, Ray-Ray—”
“I seen the dead girl.”
“What?”
“Girl’s body. Along Sandy Creek. Where the fire started. That her?”
Marty nodded. “It was Dolly Benavidez. Firemen found her.”
“Somebody dumped her there.”
“How you know that?”
“There was tire tracks on the road. Drag marks where they took her from the car. Boot prints all over the side of the road.” Ray-Ray’s breathing blended with the sounds of the breeze. “New Tony Lama’s. Woman’s size, I’d guess. You tell that to the sheriff.”
It made sense. Ray-Ray could have seen the tracks the traffic from the fire trucks and snow had covered. “Come with me. Tell him yourself.”
“Bold talk for a man whose guns are layin’ on the ground.” Ray-Ray winked. “I’m leavin’ now. Follow me and I’ll have to kill you.” He backed into the brush, and in a moment there were only the sounds of his movements through the brush along the creek.
Marty’s knees failed him, and he dropped into the snow. More cold than he’d ever known stabbed up at him.
“Son of a bitch.” He cursed at himself.
Birdie stepped out of the darkness. Her pistol hung in her hand. “Let him go, Marty. He didn’t have anythin’ to do with those people gettin’ killed.” She held out her hand and pulled Marty up from the snow. “None of the boys from the state’ll ever catch up to him on a night like this. He’ll show up back here in a couple of weeks after everythin’ blows over.”
All went quiet except the wind. Clouds boiled and covered the moon. Night and cold wrapped tight around them.
Marty looked up at Birdie. “What are we gonna tell Kendall?”
“We got a long walk out of here. It’ll give us time to think of a good lie. C’mon.” She turned and walked away. “Don’t forget your guns, dumbass.”