With a roar, Barney came after me, and I turned to run back to the woods. But then the gun went off behind me.
And Barney wasn't running after me anymore.
Fifteen
I stopped and turned around. Barney Simpson was lying in the driveway, so newly cleaned of tree debris. Now he was getting it dirty again, because he was really bleeding from a hole in his shoulder.
Mr. Hamilton had come forward to the edge of the deck, and Nita was behind him. She was wearing another tracksuit, and her short hair looked just as neat in the overhead light as it had in the daytime.
"You think you need to shoot him again?" she asked her husband.
"I think he's done," Ted Hamilton said. "You scoot in there and call the police."
"I'm one step ahead of you, honey, I already did it when I heard his voice outside," she said. "Miss Connelly, you want to step around him, real careful, and come inside?"
"Thank you," I said, in a very shaky voice that didn't sound at all like my own. "I'd love to be inside. Inside anything."
"You poor girl, come on in."
I walked very carefully around Barney Simpson, who was clutching his shoulder and as white as a sheet, though the bright overhead light washed the color out of everything. I went up the stairs very carefully, since nothing in my body seemed to be working exactly right. I was careful not to jostle Ted or come between him and the downed man. I didn't want Barney to get any more like the Terminator than he already had.
When I was close to Nita Hamilton and she got a good look at me, she said, "We do need to get you inside. Ted, are you good out here?"
"Yes, honey, you take care of the young lady."
And just like that I was in a warm place. I could have predicted almost everything about the Hamiltons' cottage, from the maple furniture to the crocheted throws folded over the backs of their favorite chairs, from the framed baby pictures to the china rooster on an end table. Nita efficiently threw a towel over the wooden chair by the door, where they probably normally dumped their keys and coats. After I looked down at myself, I knew that was the only possible place for me to sit.
"You're bleeding," she said. "I'm going to get a rag and wipe you off. I know the EMTs will do it right, but you don't want to be sitting there dripping. I know I wouldn't."
And that was true enough, though I didn't really care that much just at the moment.
She was back with a clean rag and a white enamel basin of warm water in just a couple of minutes, and she began the tedious process of cleaning my face.
"Ted'll keep his distance, don't you worry," she said quietly, as if shooting men was an everyday occurrence at the lake cottage. "He won't get too close."
"When will the police be here?"
"Any moment. Your brother has been looking for you all over town," Mrs. Hamilton said, and my heart felt warm again. "He called out here and asked us to keep our eyes open, because he saw Barney Simpson's car parked at the other end of the lake. So we were prepared."
"I hope the police understand," I said.
"I'm sure they will. Nothing wrong with our sheriff. She's a good one."
I wasn't as sold on that idea as Nita, but then the sheriff wasn't answerable to me.
"How come your head's bleeding?" Nita asked, as if to make sure I was completely there with her mentally.
"He pulled me out of the car by the hair," I said, and she looked truly shocked. "He pulled some stitches out."
"Well, if Ted knew that, he'd shoot him again," she said, and that triggered a set of giggles that shook my body in an unpleasant way.
I thought, Then I wish I'd told him, but just then we heard an ominous sound outside. It was a deep groan, and it came from right outside the door. Ted Hamilton. Oh, shit.
Quick as a wink, Nita locked the front door, and just barely in time. The knob turned, and when the door wouldn't open to him, Barney threw himself against it.
"Come out," he bellowed, "come out here!"
"He's hurt Ted," Nita said. "That son of a bitch."
Even at that moment, I was shocked. But that was only the beginning. Nita opened a closet on the other side of the front door, pulled out a rifle, and aimed it at the door. "This is our varmint rifle," she told me, maybe because I was gaping at her. "He comes in here, he's dead. I might turn my own cheek, but I ain't offering up yours."
Barney threw himself against the door. Since I was still sitting to the right of the door, like a fool, I could hear the click in the quiet night. "Move!" I yelled. "Move, Nita!" And Barney fired Ted's pistol into the house.
The cabin had a good door, but the bullet came in and passed through the living room and into the kitchen beyond. Nita had moved to the side, and it missed her by a foot or more, but it was pretty shocking. For a moment I thought Nita would falter, that all her courage would drain away, but she raised the rifle and fired right back, and we heard a scream.
After a second of staring at each other, Nita said, "I have to see about my husband." Though I thought it was the worst idea in the world for her to open that door, I said "Of course you do" through stiff lips. I reached up my right hand and unlocked the door, and turned the knob as quietly as I could, though I'm not sure why I was trying to be so quiet at this late date.
The door swung open, and we saw Barney again down and bleeding, and Ted Hamilton crumpled on the deck in a corner, blood running from his shoulder. He was conscious, but only just. Nita said, "Oh," and it sounded like she was witnessing the end of the world.
Then she simply stepped over Barney to get to her man, and she knelt down by him, and she put pressure on his shoulder like the sensible woman she was, and I finally managed to subtract myself from the situation by fainting.
Sixteen
WHEN I was a little more aware of what was around me, things were better all around. I was being strapped to a gurney and I was willing to bet I was about to get a ride in an ambulance to the Doraville hospital.
"Doraville's not lucky for me," I said, or at least I thought I was saying that, but I guess I was just mumbling, because the EMT at my head, a plump young woman with an aggressive jaw, said, "You're gonna be okay, honey, don't you worry."
"Mr. Hamilton?"
"That's nice, your asking about him. We got the bleeding stopped. I think he's gonna be okay, too."
"Barney?"
"He ain't dead, but I bet he's gonna wish he was."
"Where's my—where's Tolliver?" Had to get out of the habit of calling him my brother.
"Tall, dark, skinny?"
"Mm-hm."
"Waiting for us to wheel you out."
And I smiled.
"That's sweet, she's happy to see him," the young woman said. Her partner, a man in his fifties, said, "Grace, let's just get her out of here," and she pouted as they got me down the deck steps.
Tolliver was by me, and he was beside himself. "He took you right out of the car," he said, as if I didn't know that. "I couldn't believe it when I came out and you were gone!"
"Well, you-all can talk all night if you want. Let us get this gal to the hospital," the older man said.
The ride back to the hospital took a while, and the young woman sat in back with me and chattered the whole time. She took my pulse and checked my temperature and did all kinds of things, including looking at the stitches in my scalp. From the slight face she made, I knew they weren't in good shape.
"Now, I understand you had a cracked ulna a few days ago?" she asked. "I think you've graduated to a broken arm, but we'll take us an X-ray to be sure."
"Okay," I said. We'd have to go into our savings to pay for my Doraville medical bills. That'd be that much longer until we could buy our house. But it was hard for me to worry about that right now, or much of anything else, being in this ambulance felt so blissful compared to my previous three hours of experience.