Shells at car, he thought: three of them. Pick them up too.
He took a quick look back. Across the way, he could make out very little of where Jack Preece lay. It occurred to him to bury the body, but he didn’t have a shovel, he didn’t feel like getting Preece’s blood and DNA all over himself, and some forest animal would come along and dig it up, anyhow. If Preece was found, Preece would be found, and someone could have a field day coming up with a conspiracy theory as to how he got there and what he was up to. Some Johnnie would probably write another goddamned useless book on it.
He was set.
It was time to go.
He stood and began to move and then he heard something. Not sure what it was—a shout, a call, a squawk, something natural, something human?—he slid back, pulling out the .45, thumb rising to the safety, as the empty Mini-14 was now useless.
What the—?
He waited and it came again.
Yes, it was a human call, blurred and almost recognizable, from somewhere off to the left.
His eyes scanned the terrain.
He caught a flash of motion across the way, in the trees, and watched as it tumbled into focus, the awkward form of a man walking clumsily. He saw it was Russ, tumbling forward but yanked back, then pushed forward again. Bob made out the second man behind him, controlling him. It was Peck, of course.
Peck screamed again.
“Sniper! Come on and fight me, sniper, goddamn you.”
Duane Peck saw his future in a second when the boy stumbled toward him. He would take the boy and through the boy take the sniper. In that way he would endear himself to Red Bama and the Bama organization and enjoy a life of respect, wealth, property and importance, everything he yearned for.
And the boy presented himself so easily, snot-nosed punk stumbling through the woods. Duane had subdued many prisoners in his time: the secret was leverage and meanness, one of which he obtained by surprise and the other of which he had always had, by genetics or environment. The boy captured, cuffed and pushed before him, he now had to determine how to handle Swagger. But it didn’t take long to figure that out: the Glock had a hair trigger when you took the slack out of it; the muzzle held against the boy’s head, the trigger gone back on itself as far as it could go, and he was invulnerable to any rifle shot, for a rifle shot would surely cause his finger to constrict and the boy would be dead too. That he knew about Swagger: he cared about the boy. He would not let the boy die.
He would draw Swagger to him, unarmed, and then simply shoot him. What could Swagger do? He could not risk losing the boy, that was his code, that was his weakness. It was the one thing that Duane knew better than his own name: attack through weakness. This was Swagger’s; this gave him an advantage that neither the ten professional gunmen nor the night-vision-equipped marksman had. It was in fact the one advantage Duane Peck had always had and he knew it: he was willing to do the dirty work. He didn’t have any illusions: he didn’t mind the blood spatters and the screams. He could get through anything. He knew he could do it. He’d been spoiling for this chance his whole life.
He pushed Russ along savagely, not seeing him as human. He was full of rage and power, and felt at last he was coming into what was owed him for having put up with having so little for so long.
“Go on, you little fucker,” he hissed, his mind foggy with anger. “You give me any shit and I will kill you right now.”
“I—” the boy started, and Duane clubbed him hard with the gun, driving him to the earth, drawing a rivulet of blood down his neck and into his shirt.
He reached down and sank a hand into the boy’s thick hair, pulling his head back hard while putting his boot between the boy’s shoulder blades, as if to break him on a rack.
“Yeah, you give me lip, you little bastard, and you will be sorry as a sack of shit.”
He pulled the boy up to his legs and shoved him ahead.
“You moron,” the boy shouted back at him, “he knows you killed Sam. He’s been looking forward to this. He’ll kill you dead cold.”
Duane’s breath left him; that wasn’t a good sign. He felt adrenaline flare through him, and the urge to dump the boy, shoot him in the head and run like hell spiraled through the deepest and most frightened part of his mind.
But, no, goddammit, maybe the old Duane Peck, not the new one. This was it: his chance. Grab it and make it happen. Be strong.
“Git going, you little bastard,” he hissed.
In what seemed like not much time at all, they reached the clearing. Duane held Russ close and looked about it. He could see nothing. Was Bob there? He didn’t see him.
He shoved the boy ahead. They moved through the grass into the clearing. Duane started hollering.
“Come fight me, Swagger! Come on, goddammit, or I will kill this boy right here. Come on, you gutless asshole, come and fight me!”
But nothing happened.
“See, he’s chickenshit,” he said to the boy. “You say he’s a man, but he ain’t. He likes to kill people from a long way off and scurry away like a little toad. But when it comes to man’s work, by God, his little dick gets small and goes away.”
He paused.
“Come and fight me, sniper,” he screamed again.
And then he saw that he was going to get his wish.
Across the way, he watched as a man emerged, tall and strong, and walked toward him with the slow and steady pace of a gunfighter.
“You’re fucked,” said Russ.
Bob had the .45 Commander cocked and locked over his kidney, not in the inside-the-belt holster, but wedged lightly between his jeans and his shirt, too delicately situated for vigorous action. It was set just so for one reason: to draw. He could see Peck hardly at all as he approached. Only Russ, his arms jacked tight behind him, was visible. The boy’s face was pale with fear and he looked as if he were in great pain. Now and then Peck peeked around for a glance, but quickly retreated behind his human shield.
With a good rifle, Bob could have possibly hit the brain shot, but he didn’t have one. He just had the .45 and he didn’t like Peck’s damned Glock with its tricky, dangerous trigger, its black snout pressed at the boy’s temple.
It seemed to take forever, that long, slow walk through the grass across the clearing. The sun was shining through the trees. The birds were singing. The grass ruffled in the breeze. It looked to be a glorious, radiant Arkansas summer day.
Get in close, he told himself. You get in close, then you get ten feet closer.
He kept moving.
Am I fast? he thought. We’ll see if I’m still fast.
“That’s far enough,” called Peck.
“What?” Bob said, taking another few steps.
“I said hold it!” Peck bellowed, the gun coming off Russ’s head and toward Bob.
Bob stopped and raised his hands, and the gun went back into Russ’s neck, just under the ear. Bob was five feet away, close enough to see the whiteness of the taut index finger as it rode the trigger right to the breaking point and the way the square muzzle actually plunged a quarter inch into the soft skin in the gap between the boy’s jaw and his skull, just under the ear. Russ’s eyes bugged like deviled eggs.
“Ain’t this a pretty picture,” Bob said.
“Fuck you, Swagger,” said Peck. “You are checking out today, partner.”
“Shoot him,” said Russ through a throatful of gun. “Shoot through me and kill him.”
“You shut up now, Russ,” said Bob. “Peck, this here’s between you and me, isn’t it? Let the boy go. Let him run free. Then you take your shot at me and we will see who’s the quicker man today.”