Six feet out, half a second, get the gun, six feet back. The incoming slug was just that fraction of a second too slow, slapping off the rock a yard wide and again, too high.
He had the gun. He stood, popped his head out for a half second, pulled back. Dropped to his knees, popped his head out again, saw movement: like a bear, somebody in dark clothes near the crest, running toward the crest, away from them. He pulled back, stood, turned around the corner, braced himself on the rock, aimed the pistol five or six feet high and started pulling the trigger, counting out seven shots. He had no idea how much elevation he needed at four hundred yards, but it'd be a lot-the pistol shot almost five inches low at a hundred yards.
If he hit something, the chances of which were vanishingly small, that was all to the good. Mostly he wanted a bunch of slugs flying around the guy like bees.
Because, he thought, the guy couldn't take the slightest chance of getting hit. If he was hit, or even seen, he was done…
SO: A STALEMATE. Virgil was down in the pool, without any way of going after the guy. But Virgil was also armed and wary, down among the jumble of rocks, and would be hard to get at.
Virgil stood next to the wall, ready to take cover, and watched, and watched, and saw nothing more. Finally, he shouted at Joan, "Underwater, just like I did, into that groove. He's not there anymore, but don't take any chances. Get out of there quick."
She nodded, pushed herself under, and a few seconds later, surfaced and crawled into the groove, across the rock, and then stood up next to him.
"Now what?" She shivered. She'd been in the cool water too long.
"Now I do this for a couple more minutes, and then I grab the clothes."
"Virgil…"
"I'm about ninety-nine percent sure he's gone. He can't be seen. You can hear that rifle for a mile or more, and it's not hunting season…He's got to move. He's got to get out of here."
"Probably go straight north on Holman. There's nothing there, before you hit Highway Seven. Once he's on Seven, he's just another car."
"Then that's probably it," Virgil said, and he thrust himself away from the wall, grabbed the clothes, and was back. He handed her her bra and blouse, then pushed her back against the wall and kissed her and said, "Getting shot at makes me horny."
"And your penis is about a half-inch long. Cold water does it every time. It's sort of a tragedy, isn't it?"
Virgil looked down at himself and said, "That wasn't the cold water, sweetheart. That was fear, pure and simple." He stepped back, looking up the hill. "If he'd been cool about it, he could have slipped up close, we'd be playing in the pool and bang! He could have done both of us."
She leaned out from the wall and asked, "I wonder why he didn't?"
"He might have been planning to, but he stopped to look things over with the scope. That's when I saw him. I think he wanted to wait until we were out of the water so he could get a full body shot, but he got impatient and stopped to look us over…"
They were dressing as they talked; when they were done, Virgil said, "I'll get the stuff."
"Fuck the stuff," she said.
"He's gone," Virgil said. "He's gone…but we stay close to the wall anyway. If there's any other place he'd wait, it'd be while we're coming out of the mouth of the canyon."
VIRGIL POPPED OUT AGAIN, grabbed the food, and jumped back. Then out again, snagged Joan's duffel, and hopped back. Never exposed for more than a second. Time enough for a snap shot, but not a good one, not if the shooter couldn't anticipate the move.
When they were ready, Virgil said, "Squeeze in close to the wall, and when we have to show ourselves, move fast. One at a time. You first."
Fifty feet back into the canyon, they were protected. They stopped and Joan used the quilt to wash the blood off Virgil's face. "You've got five small cuts." She traced them with her index finger, on his temple and cheek. "I don't think stitches, but you could use some Band-Aids."
"Got some in the truck."
At the mouth of the canyon, an obvious ambush spot, they sat, watched, and finally made the move, running one at a time past the stock tank, crouched through the weeds, behind the barn.
Breathing hard, Joan said, "That's a heck of a fourth date. I don't think you've got a reasonable encore."
THE BARN was going dark as the sun went down. Virgil got a box of shells from the truck and reloaded the magazine for the pistol, the shells clicking into place. When he was finished, he opened the back hatch, lifted the concealment cover, took out a shotgun and a box of shells, loaded the shotgun.
Joan said, "It was you he wanted."
"I think so. He's getting tired of my act."
"That's a relief," she said. "At least I'm safe."
He laughed. "Yeah. Listen, about that short penis thing…"
"It's not your fault."
"It's not that; I just wish you'd use some word other than penis, you know? Sounds too much like peanut." He finished loading the shotgun and pumped a shell into the chamber and put it between the front truck seats. "Why don't you say…dick. That'd be good."
"Seems crude."
"Whatever." He stepped away from the truck and looked up at the overhead light. "Does that light come on when the barn door goes up?"
"Yes."
"It'll silhouette us. I'll get it." He took off his shoes and climbed up on the hood of the truck, and then on the roof, reached up and unscrewed the lightbulb, left it hanging by a thread. "Punch the door lift, just enough to turn on the light."
She punched the lift button, and the lightbulb remained dark.
"When I say to lift the door, lift it; then climb in the backseat, get down low, and hang on. I'm getting out of here."
He climbed into the truck, started the engine, and braced the shotgun, muzzle down, between the passenger-side floor and seat. "Punch the button; get in."
She did, and he watched the door going up, seeming to take an eternity; then he hit the gas and the truck blew through the opening, backward, and he kept it moving, backward, in a circle, around the parking circle, jabbed the brake, jammed the shift into Drive, and tore down the short driveway to the county road, skidded onto the road with a quick brake and another pulse of acceleration, and they were gone.
"We okay?" Joan asked.
"Yeah. He's long gone; but we're so far away from help that we didn't dare take the chance…"
He drove past the hill, away from town. "Where're we going?" Joan asked.
"Got some people to talk to." He slowed, pulled over, and said, "Let me get rid of the shotgun, and you can ride up front."
THEY STOPPED at five farms along Highway 7, and spoke to one guy mowing a ditch: Who had they seen on the highway?
Shrugs and shaken heads: nobody in particular.
On the way back to town, Virgil said, "I thought everybody knew everybody else's car."
"Not out here. In town. If it'd been something unusual, like a Toyota or a Mercedes, somebody might have noticed. But a Ford or a Chevy, unless there's a sign on it…"
VIRGIL DIDN'T WRITE much that night: he was stuck on story development.
Homer was pissed off and scared. The killer was coming after him: time to let somebody know about that, file a report.
But: the man in the moon. He spent some time considering it-thought about Jesse Laymon's moon earrings. Those had a man in the moon, but Homer didn't think Betsy would be talking about a symbol. She was talking about a man.
And Homer thought about the new moon coming up as he was driving into the thunderstorm, on the way to Bluestem, the crescent moon in his rearview mirror. Could the moon be triggering this guy? A new moon? Huh. The moon came up in the east, just like the sun did. Were Gleason and Schmidt propped up facing to the east, because that was where the moon came from? Facing the moon, but not allowed to see it?