I saw him.
I saw a shoe. It grew into a leg and then into two legs half screened by the low-hanging branches of a dogwood twenty yards straight down the hill from where I was. The underbrush was heavier here than it had been on top of the hill, but by moving a little to the right I could see him clearly.
I took a deep breath, feeling tight across the chest. One of us might be dead in the next minute or two. I could try to bluff him with the gun, but suppose he didn’t bluff? He
was desperate; he had nothing to lose.
I could still go back.
I thought of those three safe-deposit boxes in Sanport and knew there was never any going back now. I started crawling down the hill.
I watched his legs. There was no movement. I could see his whole body now. The rifle, with its telescope sight, lay across a small log in front of him while he watched the clearing and the house. I searched the ground ahead for any leaf or twig that would make the slightest sound if I stepped on it.
Ten feet behind him I straightened up on my knees, pulled the gun out of my belt, leveled it at the back of his head, and said, “All right, Mac. Turn around. Without the gun.”
His face jerked around. He started to lift the rifle.
“You’ll never make it,” I said.
His eyes were a little crazy, but he knew I was right.
He didn’t have a chance, lying down that way and facing in the other direction.
“Slide the bolt out,” I said. “All the way. And throw it —”
I was careless. I’d been intent on him to the exclusion of everything else. It was almost too late when I heard the sound behind me. I started to turn, and the club missed my head just far enough to land on my arm, numbing it out to the fingertips.
He was scrambling to his knees, trying to get the rifle swung around. I clawed at the tree limb with the sick arm and reached back with the other and found her. I put the hand against her belly and threw her at him like a bag of laundry. She took a long step backward and crashed down on top of him and the two of them rolled across the rifle. I reached down for the gun I had dropped.
It was the blonde, but she’d turned off the Southern belle. Her eyes were hot with fury as she untangled her long legs and arms and tried to sit up. She had pine needles in her hair, and a scratch on her knee oozed blood over the ruin of a nylon stocking.
She didn’t like me. And you could see the cords in her throat while she was telling me about it.
“Shut up,” I said.
I walked over to them. They were both sitting up. The rifle was under her legs in the sand. I pushed them out of the way and dragged it from under her with my foot. She liked me even less. He didn’t say anything. He just looked at me with his crazy eyes.
I shoved the rifle backward, stepped back to it, and squatted down. I took the bolt out and threw it twenty yards down the hill into the underbrush. Then I swung the rest of it against a tree. The stock splintered, and broken glass trickled out the end of the scope.
“Where’s the car?” I said.
Something had been eating him away inside for a long time. You could see it in the hot, crazy eyes, and in the way his hands twitched as he rubbed them across his mouth. “Who are you?” he asked. His voice was ragged.
“What do you want?”
“A car,” I said. “I thought I mentioned that.”
There was something odd about them, and I saw what it was now that I had time to take a good look. They were brother and sister. He was big, and a lot younger, probably not over twenty-one or twenty-two, but it was unmistakable. Maybe it was the identical ash blondness and the well-formed bone structure of their faces. They were good-looking as hell. And full of it.
“You’ll never take her out of here,” he said. “You’ll never take her out of here alive. I’ll kill her. I’ll kill you.”
I gestured with the gun. “On your feet.”
He hesitated a moment, watching me; then he got up. She continued to sit there
I caught her by the arm and hauled her up. Red fingernails slashed toward my face. I brushed her hand away and shoved her. She bounced against him and he
caught her to keep her from falling.
“If she won’t walk,” I said, “carry her.”
He stared hungrily at the gun. “Where?”
“Out to the road. We’re looking for a car, remember?”
She looked at him with contempt. “Are you afraid of
this miserable thug?” “What do you want me to do?” he said. “He’s got the
gun.”
“So you’re going to let her get away?”
“She hasn’t got away yet.”
“All right, break it up,” I said. “You can yak some other
time.” “What are you going to do with Mrs. Butler?” she
asked.
“I’m going to adopt her. I think she’s cute.”
“Maybe you don’t know what you’re getting mixed up
in. The police want her for murder. She killed her husband.”
“I don’t care if she killed Cock Robin,” I said. “I just work here. Now shut up and start walking.”
They started out toward the road. I kept about six feet behind them. When we struck it we were near the edge of the meadow. I didn’t see the car anywhere. It had to be above.
“Turn right,” I said. “Up the hill. And stay in the road.”
We went silendy uphill through the sand.
“You could tell me where it is,” I said. “But that would
be the easy way. So we’ll just walk. It’s only eight miles out to the road, and eight miles back.”
They made no answer. They walked side by side in icy silence, not looking back.
“If we pass it,” I said, “don’t bother to say anything. We’ve got all the rest of the day to walk around.”
I watched the ruts, fairly sure I’d see where they had pulled it off the road even if they had it hidden. And just before we reached the crest of the ridge I did. It was pulled off in a clump of dogwood. It was the same car the girl had driven up in.
“Who’s got the keys?” I asked.
They stared at me in silent hatred.
It was obvious she didn’t have them, because she didn’t
have a purse. I looked at him. “All right, Blondy. How’d you like one through the leg?”
He took the keys out of his pocket.
“You drive,” I said. “And Toots will sit in the middle.”
We got in. He backed it out on the road. “Downhill,” I said. “To the camp. And don’t get any funny ideas about giving it the gun and crashing into a tree. I might walk away from it, but you wouldn’t.”
We were jammed in together, but I held the gun in my right hand over against the door, where she couldn’t grab for it.
She turned her face and stared into mine from a distance of three inches. She was lovely. “You son-of-abitch,” she said.
I patted her on the leg. “Did you ever find Gillespie, honey?”
Chapter Nine
We stopped in front of the cabin.
I got out. “Inside,” I said.
We went up on the porch. I heard Madelon Butler unlocking the door, and knew she had watched us from the window. The door opened and the blonde went in, followed by her brother. I was in the rear, not expecting it, and they almost pulled it off.
He jumped inside, making some kind of hoarse roaring sound in his throat, and the blonde tried to slam and bolt the door ahead of me. I got a foot in it just before it closed, and leaned on it. She shot back into the room and sat down. I almost fell over her.
He was on the floor, with Madelon Butler under him, groping wildly to get both hands on her throat. She was kicking and beating at his arms, but uttering no sound, while that insane racket kept coming from his open mouth.