The dollar dances were short, lasting a minute or less apiece, so Blackburn's turn came soon. As he approached the bride, he knew that all eyes in the room were on him, and that most of their owners were wondering who the hell he was. As he took the bride's warm hand in his, he saw the groom give him a nod. The groom had confidence in Blackburn's discretion.
"Hello, Eleanor," Blackburn said. "Congratulations."
"Thank you," she said. Her face was frozen in a smile, but Blackburn could see that behind it, she was pretty. She was shorter than she had appeared from a distance, and small-boned. She seemed so light that Blackburn had the impression that a strong hug would crush her. Her dark-blond hair was permed into ringlets. Blackburn leaned in close to speak to her, and the ringlets brushed his cheek.
"So now you're Steve's wife," Blackburn said.
She rolled her eyes. "It hardly seems real yet."
"Till death do you part," he said. "I suppose you've thought a lot about that."
"Pardon?"
"The till-death-do-you-part business."
"Well," the bride said, "that's what marriage is all about."
"I was married too," Blackburn said. "But it didn't last till death. Not hers or mine, anyway. She became involved with someone else. Of course, that sort of thing couldn't happen to you and Steve."
The bride stiffened and looked away. Blackburn could see that she wanted him to leave now, but he couldn't. Not yet.
"It does happen, though," he said. "Sometimes it's the woman, sometimes the man. I guess they have their reasons."
The bride looked back at him. Her smile had vanished. "I can't imagine what. There's a Commandment against it."
"I know," Blackburn said. "But what if something happens anyway? What if someone has a good, loving spouse, and he or she goes astray just the same?"
The bride's cheeks flushed. She was angry. Blackburn was ruining her dollar dance.
"Then he or she should be shot," she said. She pulled her hand from Blackburn's. "Thank you for the dance."
Blackburn went outside and began to sweat again, so he rubbed his hands on his jeans to keep them dry. He went to the Valiant and took the Colt Python from under the front seat. The grip and trigger were hot. He returned to the building. It was too late to do anything for himself, but he could still do something for Eleanor.
Once inside again, he took a breath of air-conditioned air and cocked the Python. Then he yelled "Steve!" loud enough to be heard over the music.
Heads turned. People saw the pistol. There were shouts. Some of the men started toward him. The music stopped.
The groom was standing on the far side of the room. It was a longer shot than Blackburn had ever tried. But the middle of the room had been emptied for the dollar dance, and the man dancing with the bride pushed her to the floor and lay down on top of her. The people near the groom moved away from him. Blackburn had a clear line of fire.
He used a two-handed grip and aimed for the head, squeezing the trigger as the groom started to run. The groom dropped and screamed. The men heading for Blackburn stopped and turned to look. The groom lay on his back, doubled up, rocking. Blackburn sprinted across to him, jumping over the bride and her dollar-dance partner.
The groom held his crotch with both hands. Blood was soaking his tuxedo pants.
"Damn," Blackburn said, and cocked the Python again.
"Where's my dick?" the groom asked.
"I'm sorry," Blackburn said. "Bad shot." Then he fired into the groom's right eye.
He turned and saw that the exit was clogged with people squealing and squirming like baby pigs. Other people were standing and staring like concrete prairie dogs.
"Welcome home," Blackburn told himself.
At that moment the burly man who had clapped Blackburn on the back charged toward him. Blackburn pointed the Python at him. "Stop," he said, and the man stopped. "Lie down," he said, and the man lay down. So did everyone else, except for a few who still struggled to get outside. Blackburn let them go.
The bride crawled out from under her dance partner and stood. She looked at the groom, then ran at Blackburn. He lowered the gun and waited for her. When she reached him, she scratched his face. Then she hit him in the chest with her fists.
"Why?" she asked. She asked it over and over again.
Blackburn looked around until he saw the woman in the yellow dress. She was lying under the cake table. He went to her, and the bride came along, hitting him and asking her question.
"Cindy," Blackburn said, nudging the woman under the table with his foot. "Come out and tell Eleanor why I shot Steve."
The woman didn't move, so Blackburn cocked the Python. Then she came out and stood. The bride stopped hitting Blackburn and faced the woman.
"Why?" the bride asked.
The woman in the yellow dress began crying.
Blackburn thought that was a copout, but he supposed that she would have to confess sooner or later. He left her there with the bride and headed for the door, which was clear now. Halfway there, a boy on the floor clutched his ankle and held up a cloth bag.
"Is this what you want?" the boy asked.
"No," Blackburn said.
"Is this what you want?" the boy asked again. He asked it three more times, so Blackburn took the bag to shut him up. The boy released his ankle, and Blackburn went outside.
In the parking lot, a man behind a pickup truck took a shot at Blackburn with a rifle. The bullet went through the cloth bag and sprayed bits of masonry from the wall of the Lions Club building. Blackburn ran for the Valiant, firing two shots into the pickup truck.
He threw the bag and the pistol into the Valiant, jumped in, and started the engine as the rifleman came out from behind the pickup. Blackburn grabbed the Python with his left hand and fired out the window. The rifleman ducked back behind the truck. Blackburn backed the Valiant from its parking space, put it in Drive, and stomped the accelerator. He saw the rifleman again in the rearview mirror, so he reached outside and fired the Python's last shot backward. The recoil hurt his wrist, but the bullet shattered the pickup's side window, and the rifleman dove behind another car.
Blackburn sped north out of Goodland, away from I-70, watching for sheriff's deputies and the Kansas Highway Patrol. He steered with his knees while he reloaded the Python. He was operating on an intense sugar buzz. He turned east when he reached U.S. Highway 36 and switched cars in the town of Atwood. It was only then that he looked into the cloth bag that the boy had given him.
It contained the money from the dollar dance. Some of the men had paid tens and twenties to dance with the bride. There was even one fifty.
Blackburn couldn't go to Kansas City or anywhere else along I-70 for a while, so instead he headed into Nebraska via a tortuous route of county and country roads. As he drove, he considered finding out Eleanor's last name so he could mail the money to her. After all, he wasn't a thief. He did steal the occasional automobile, but that was a necessity. He hadn't meant to steal from Eleanor. He had only meant to see her receive justice. He wouldn't want her to think otherwise.
After consideration, however, Blackburn decided to keep the money himself. Eleanor, he had realized, wouldn't want it. There wasn't going to be a honeymoon anyway.
SIX
On the day after he killed his eleventh man, Blackburn decided to have a vasectomy. That was because the Monday Kansas City Times reported that the victim had been a father of four. Blackburn didn't enjoy reading it. He wished that he had stayed behind the grill instead of taking his morning break.