Bud rose and fell through crests and dips in the earth itself, before him only the most basic of pictures: darkness that was air, and slightly less darkness that was land, and the line of demarcation between them too vague to make out.
But at last he seemed to come to a crest and he halted.
He could see Ruta Beth Tun's place. A flicker of heat lightning lit the sky, briefly illuminating the farm. It had a strange familiarity about it, as if from a dream. Why did he know it?
Then he realized he'd been here before, when they were searching for the tires. Lamar must have fooled him that day. He tried to remember the girl and got no image. Why couldn't he remember?
He saw the barn, he saw the house, freshly painted, white in the starlight. A single light was on. It was about three hundred yards away.
It occurred to him to try and drive closer. No, too risky; they wouldn't see a man approaching, particularly if he kept the barn between himself and them, but the truck might make a noise or create too much motion. It was too risky.
Bud returned to the cab. He slipped out of his coat and laid his hat on the seat. This wasn't hat work, no sir. Then he reached behind the seat and slid out the Winchester carbine, Model of 1894, though this one was manufactured in 1967. Gently he eased the lever forward, cam ming a .30-30 -soft point into the chamber. Closing the lever, he groped again behind the seat, found the box of ammunition, and extracted one more round, which he inserted in the loading gate. There, that brought it up to eight rounds. A .3030 carbine wasn't the best for this kind of work, but it wasn't so bad either: He could fire fast, it was accurate, and that soft point bullet would splatter like a pancake as it moved through whatever it hit, hopefully Lamar's brain.
Hell, Texas Rangers had carried them for years and they always got their man.
He touched his other guns, counting them off: Beretta 9-mm, Colt .45, Beretta .380, all loaded, all with spare mags jammed with hollowpoints.
Bud returned to the ridge, studied the farm, glad that he recognized it and that he'd be making his fight on ground he'd at least seen before.
There was nothing else to think of or do.
Oh yeah: a prayer.
Hey, he said, looking upward. Old man. Please help me tonight. You know I need it bad.
Then he swallowed and went off to meet Lamar.
He scurried down the slope, jogging, trying not to breathe hard, watching as with surly inevitability the house and barn grew larger.
As he moved down the slope, his angle on the house changed and it seemed to disappear behind the barn.
New fears assaulted him. What if Lamar had recruited a gang, what if not three awaited him but ten, twenty?
Well, then you die, he thought, and so does Holly, but so be it. In half an hour the SWAT people would arrive; the gunfight would leave no survivors at all, like that crazy thing in Waco—people eaten up in the insanity of the moment.
He got to the barn, again encountering familiarity. He saw the oven that was a kiln, the wood tables, the racks of drying vessels, the cans of paint, glaze, whatnot, the brushes stored carefully in jars, glinting softly in the starlight, all strange, all familiar. Yes, now he remembered: She was a potter. He bought a pot from her! He remembered the pot, with its jagged flashes of color. It was the only colorful thing about her. He now saw her: a drab, scrawny young woman.
He saw exactly how she could fall for the power and the glory of a Lamar, especially as she herself had already known the sick thrill of standing over something that had been alive until just a very few seconds ago.
But still… she was a girl.
Bud hoped he could kill the girl.
Just kill her. Shoot her dead in the head or upper torso and think nothing of it.
But that little bit of doubt upset him; not that she was poignant and needy but only that she was such a drab little creature, un stirred by life's possibilities. He shook his head as he slid through the barn.
Crouching in its doorway he studied what was before him. The house was twenty-five yards off and he could see the back door and dim light from the first-floor windows.
Two cars had been parked in the yard around toward the front of the house, and he could also make out what appeared to be a rickety porch out front.
He first thought of the cars: escape.
Backing out of the barn, he circled around again in a wide low arc, and slithered up to the cars. Neither was locked; one was the Toyota that had so bedeviled everybody, and the other a black Trans Am.
Gingerly Bud opened each, leaned in, and reached up under the dash to a nest of wires. He didn't have time to find the ignition wire, but simply, with a hard yank, pulled them all. Nobody was driving anywhere tonight.
He next crawled to the side of the house. The window was tall and he couldn't quite see in, but from the low secondary light, he gauged the room to be empty and dark, probably the kitchen, its only illumination a doorway into the larger room or hallway. He snaked around back to find a door. He tried it; it was locked. He looked around quickly for something to secure the door from this side, figuring after he shot Lamar, Richard would head for the nearest exit and could be counted on to come to rest against a locked door, ready to give up.
Clothesline!
He ran to it and cut it free with his pocketknife, then came back and swiftly wrapped loops about the doorknob, drew the rope tightly to the clothesline post and tied it securely, a good working cowman's knot.
Richard wouldn't be able to get shit open.
Maybe he'd go out a window and into the fields. They'd find him thirty yards out, nursing a broken ankle.
Bud glimpsed at his watch. Four a .” no two ways about it. Time to go.
He slid around the base of the house to the edge of the porch and peered in. The front door was open, though a screen door blocked entry. The screen would be easy to shoot through, though. He drew closer to the doorway and peered into the blaze of light and sensed bodies but couldn't get a clear look. He stepped out a bit further, until at last he saw Lamar Pye.
Big as life its own self, standing by the couch, Lamar gripped the phone tightly. Behind him was Ruta Beth, a dark blur; Bud couldn't see Richard but figured he was there somewheres. And he made out a head crumpled in one corner of the couch. Holly.
The rifle came up to Bud's shoulder. He kneeled, looking for support.
The light wasn't great, but it was enough. He could see the bead of the front sight. It wobbled, described a filigree in the air, and Bud sought to capture it too hard, driving it wild. He exiled a chunk of air from his lungs and willed steadiness into his limbs.
Kill Lamar, throw lever, kill Ruta Beth. Two easy shots, a second apart. Lamar dies with his brains blown out, Ruta Beth won't react in time to move and she's the next easy target, into the chest. Then dump the rifle, draw the Beretta, and blow into the house. If you see Richard, pop him; otherwise grab Holly and flee.
Yet even now he paused just a second, dwarfed by the coldness of it all.
No, goddammit, he told himself. Do his ass. Send him to hell for breakfast.
Bud concentrated on the front sight as he pressed the trigger and the bead was right there on Lamar's broad, almost handsome face.
He felt it break, and there was perhaps a tenth of a second as the hammer fell when Bud sensed the world suspended, like a note held too long, beyond human endurance.
Time had stopped. There was no sound, no movement, no sense of life anywhere.
The rifle fired, its flash draining details from the dark night, and the door to the house shattered into a billion pieces, a sleet of bitter chaos—goddamn, not a screen but a goddamn glass storm door in the middle of hot summer, who’d ever have imagined that?—and Lamar sank instantly from view but with such goddamned energy and purpose that Bud knew the bullet had been deflected and that he had not been hit.