Jesus, what a risk.
Jesus, what a rush.
End it. End it.
HE'D ALMOST DONE IT.
He'd been sure he had Flowers, if nothing else. Had seen the head in the window of the truck, from the back. Had come up just right, had hardly heard the boom of the shotgun, had felt the most intense joy at the impact in the glass, and started to run, and then somebody called his name and he finished turning and saw movement and fired the gun and realized he'd been had…
"How stupid does he think I am?"
THE REST of it all passed in a panic flash. He was on foot, he could hear the cop cars all around, then the lights came around a corner, and Carr was coming up the alley. He stepped into a hedge, simply pressed back into it, and when she came up…
Boom/Flash.
HE HAD the car; he could hear them screaming on Carr's radio as he dumped her into the street, and then he was around the corner; and then more lights, and a flasher bar behind him. He hadn't thought about where to go, but he happened to be going north. He heard more cars calling in, heard them calling out his location, felt the squeeze.
He wouldn't go far in the car.
A last stand wasn't his style.
He turned without thinking down the county road that led to the park road, then up the park road to the Judd turnoff, radio blasting, lights behind him, more lights on the road below…and he turned down the crease in the hill that had taken his mother, and thought to follow her over, get it done with.
No guts.
Bailed at the last moment, grabbing the shotgun as he went.
Found himself rolling across the rocks, in the dark, as Margo Carr's vehicle rolled down the hill and over the bluff, like a GMC Buffalo.
HE CRAWLED, got up, started to run. Fell, hurt himself. Take it slower.
Slower. The car disappeared and he dropped into the knee-high prairie grass and began to crawl, the shotgun clattering over the surface rocks, and he crawled and shuffled and duckwalked and hopped, away from the lights, below the pit of the Judd house, along the bluff, to get away, to get anywhere…
And he heard a rock rolling; a footstep. Froze.
Lights down the hill, men shouting, but here, it was as black as a coal bin, and quiet.
Another rock. He wasn't alone. Buffalo? There was a fence, couldn't be a buffalo. Could be a deer…
Could be that fuckin' Flowers.
VIRGIL SAT at the corner of the hill, below a clump of plum trees, none more than about six feet high, and all of them armed with sharp spurs: not quite thorns, but they hurt like hell if you jabbed yourself.
He was sitting on a crumbled pile of rock. He hadn't had the eye to hit major-college pitching, but he had the arm to be a major-college third baseman. He sat and threw rocks into the dark, listening to them hit, listening for reaction.
HEARD WHAT he thought might be a footfall, below, a hundred feet away. Threw a rock out in front of it: the quiet got quieter. Interesting. Threw another rock into the night, and picked up the rifle. Nothing. Threw another rock…
WILLIAMSON HAD the movement figured. Somebody moving to his right, kicking an occasional rock. He focused: he had three shells left. Had to be Flowers…didn't it? He thought about firing, but didn't. Instead, amazed at himself, he called, "Virgil? You there?"
VIRGIL HEARD HIM clearly, below, to the right of the place he'd been throwing rocks. Eased himself flat, pushed the rifle out in front of him.
"Todd? You okay?"
Williamson: "I'm pretty fuckin' scared, man."
Virgiclass="underline" "We know you've got that shotgun. Margo's gonna be okay; she's got glass but she's not going to die. Give it up."
Williamson: "You won't shoot me?"
Virgiclass="underline" "You must've heard about the time I shot at somebody fourteen times, and missed. Everybody else in town has. I don't want any goddamn gunfight."
Williamson: "Judd killed my mom."
Virgiclass="underline" "I know. I got the same opinion from a medical examiner. Judd beat her with a pool cue. She was already dying when she went over the edge. You really were a miracle baby."
WILLIAMSON HAD him spotted. Flowers was no more than thirty or forty feet away, he thought. He was invisible, but then, he must be invisible to Flowers, as well. He half stood, pointing the gun in the direction of the voice. "I quit," he said. "What do you want me to do?"
Virgil said, "Toss the shotgun…"
Williamson pointed the shotgun and fired and pumped and then…
HE WAS on his back, the shotgun clattering away, and he was looking up at the moon, almost full, and he heard Flowers shouting and then a bright light cut his eyes and Flowers was kneeling next to him.
The pain cut in: everything below his waist was on fire. He said to Flowers, "I guess that wasn't too bright."
"NO, IT WASN'T," Virgil said. He patted Williamson on the shoulder, not knowing what else to do. "Hang in there, we'll have you on your way in a minute." He stood up and circled the flash, "Over here, goddamnit, we need to carry him, we need a litter, something to carry him with. Let's go, go…"
People were running and Virgil sat down next to Williamson again. "That was you that shot at me and Joanie down in the dell?" Virgil said.
"Ahh," Williamson said. Pain and agreement. But of course, it had been. That's why he hadn't known about a better place to park, and a better approach to the delclass="underline" Williamson wasn't a Bluestem native, had never taken his girl up to swim in the dell.
"One more question, before everybody gets here…"
Williamson was fading but he answered the question and then Jensen stumbled up, Stryker was there, and more people were yelling and they started moving Williamson.
Too late.
The hornet's nest of.30-caliber slugs had taken out a chunk of his femoral artery, a chunk no bigger than a corn kernel. That was enough.
Halfway down the hill, Todd Williamson bled out and died.
26
VIRGIL AND JOAN took a picnic basket up to the top of the hill above Stryker's Dell, spread a blanket, ate pastrami sandwiches, and found faces in the clouds. Virgil was disturbed. He'd never killed anyone before, though he'd once shot a woman in the foot.
Joan knew that, and prattled on about other things, trying to pry his mind away from it. He knew what she was doing, and it wasn't working.
And she said, "…definitely in love. When Jim was married the first time, it was like, you know, they were obliged to get married. They dated in high school, and everybody else got taken, so they got married. But they never clicked. There wasn't any heat."
"I hope it works out," Virgil said. "Jesse's a handful. I saw them this morning, and they seemed pretty happy."
"Well, at least Todd…it's all done with," Joan said. "Being scared, being worried, being lonely. A lot of things changed in the past couple of weeks." She looked up at him: "You're brooding."
"Sorry."
DAVENPORT HAD CALLED the morning after the shooting and the first thing he'd asked was, "How are you?"
"He never touched me," Virgil said.
"That's not what I meant," Davenport said. "I meant, 'How's your head?'"
"Don't know."
"Keep me up on it," Davenport said. "You've always been the sensitive type. It worries me."
"Okay."
Davenport pushed: "Virgiclass="underline" the guy was like a drunk driver, and you were the wall. It's not the wall's fault when the drunk gets killed."
"Okay."
"When are you coming back? No rush, you're on leave until we have the board."
"I'll be back. Couple of things to pick up here," Virgil said.
"Take it easy. If it really gets on top of you, there are pills," Davenport said. "Believe me: they can help. I know."
"Thanks, man. Talk to ya."
SO VIRGIL AND JOAN looked at the clouds and picked out an elephant and a burning bush and a fat man's ass, complete with a tiny blue anus with a streak of sunshine showing through it, and Joan asked, "How did you get so focused on Todd?"