He yanked her off into the darkness.
Bud stepped out from behind the car but then remembered Ruta Beth, still in the doorway. He drew back and put the rifle on her once again.
“GET OUT, GODDAMMIT AND GO FACE DOWN!”
But the woman just stared at him. Then slowly, she seemed to be raising her hands but she stopped midway, and pointed something at him.
Was there a gun in it or what?
Bud didn't have time to think; the carbine fired, he threw the lever and fired again. He didn't see the bullets strike, but with the second one, Ruta Beth seemed to deflate; all the air went out of her as she tumbled sideways and she seemed to hit the floor with sickening force, her arms and legs flung loosely akimbo.
He wanted to race out after Lamar.
But where was Richard?
Where was Richard?
Was it a trap? Maybe it was Richard who had gone out the window, and Lamar, reloading, just waited for him to show himself.
No, it was Lamar. Only Lamar would be smart enough to get out the window that fast. Richard would be inside, in pieces. Richard wasn't a factor, that was clear.
Richard lay on the kitchen floor, sobbing.
It was so unfair. Why did things always have to happen to him? Now the police were here and they would kill him. He hadn't done anything.
Didn't they understand that? He was innocent. No blame should be attached to him. It wasn't like he wanted any of this to happen. He actually tried to prevent it. In the restaurant, he had heroically screamed, trying to save the woman's life. Ruta Beth had killed her, not him.
Richard tugged on the door again. It wouldn't budge.
He turned and crawled to the door and peeked into the living room. The shooting had stopped. The windows were all blasted out and there was no sign of Lamar.
“Lamar?” he called.
No answer.
He looked toward the door and saw Ruta Beth's boots laying splayed on the floor of the porch. He suspected, after all the shooting, that Ruta Beth was still in them.
He crawled over and peeked around. Ruta Beth lay on her stomach, in a huge and spreading black, satiny puddle -of blood. She was utterly inert, utterly without signs of life.
He'd never seen anything so still in his life.
He faced the darkness.
He raised his hands.
“I surrender,” he said.
There was no answer.
It was the worst possible thing. Now he had to pursue an armed and very violent man across unknown terrain in the dark. He couldn't shoot because he'd hit Holly. At any time, Lamar could double back to ambush him.
You fool, he told himself.
You stupid fool. You don't have the sense of a buck worm More out of anger than anything, he plunged ahead, trying to control his breathing, trying to regain his night vision after it was blown to hell by the gun flashes.
But then he thought: Lamar is blind, too. Lamar won't be able to see shit for a good five minutes.
Bud raced ahead, low. He tossed the carbine; it was useless in the close-quarter stuff that was coming up. This was straight cop work: an in-close gunfight with an innocent body in the way. He knew the statistics from Police Marksman magazine: The average gunfight now took place between twenty and twenty-three feet, with an exchange of between 2.3 and 5.5 shots. So he took out his .45 Commander, the bullet being a harder hitter and the gun being easier to shoot straight and well. It would be a close thing, if it happened at alclass="underline" one, two shots, not like in the tattoo shop, with them all blazing away as if in a war movie.
The gun's familiar grip somewhat comforted him; its known contours, its safety exactly where the safety should be, its short trigger taut and sharp against his finger, the way it settled into his palm and the way his fingers clenched about it—all these things had their pleasures in the tension of the moment. He hunched, looking for signs in the field, thinking of course that Lamar would head for the nearest clump of trees so as not to be caught in the open. The prairie was empty and barren; but ahead, on the right, he saw a clump of trees in a fold, the only feature in the emptiness. There was no other place to go, no other route of escape, and he knew Lamar would move fast because he'd have figured there'd be fleets of cops there in no time.
Or maybe he said fuck it, strangled the girl, and now had just flattened himself into the earth and waited for his blood enemy to approach.
No. Lamar's not like that. He's a professional, whatever else he is, and would put first priority on escaping to steal and kill another day, on another chance to get Bud and get away. He wasn't one for sacrificing himself.
Bud crouched lower and hurried onward.
The girl was slowing him down. He wanted to smash her to the earth.
But the girl was the only card he had, so he had to hold her.
He assumed Pewtie was following him. What choice did the lawman have?
But when he looked back across the fields, he could see nothing, or nothing real; spangles of light, blue and orange like pinwheels from a Fourth of July when he was a boy, still danced before his eyes from the nearness of the shotgun's fireworks. That's the trouble with a goddamned sawed-off.
Once, the girl went to her knees, but he pulled her savagely up.
“You stay with me, girly, or I will finish you here, quiet like and then do your husband and go on my happy way.”
He saw terror, and felt her squirm. She made a sound, low and raw, behind the gag. But she could not meet his power, and looked away, her eyes bugging, the veins in her throat standing out like ropes. She was bleeding, too, from the fall out the window; she'd hit her head hard.
Tough shit.
It was going to be a hard night on everybody.
He pulled her along. He could see the dark line of the trees ahead only a hundred or so yards, and happily accepted the fact that cop cars and choppers and whatever hadn't yet arrived. Maybe Pewtie hadn't called them, had tried to do the whole thing on his own, some John Wayne kind of deal. But no: Pewtie would call for backup and then come in alone. Lamar knew the plan: Kill him and walk out with the girl, knowing the others would fade.
Now Lamar was but fifty yards from the tree line. A sudden spurt of energy came to him, and he roared ahead, pulling the girl. She seemed wasted, without much fight, but in some mix-up of limbs, she went down and he got tangled in her and he went down, too, with a thud, tasting dirt as he fell. There was a slight moment of concussion, and suddenly she squirmed savagely and ripped away from him. With more power than he ever thought she had, she raced away.
“Goddamn you!” he hissed and brought the gun up and began to press the trigger, but stomped on the impulse, knowing the flash would give him away. Instead he rose and leaped after her, slipping once in the mud, but in three short bounds had her. He tackled her, feeling his weight and strength bring her down, but she kicked and bucked under him, and he tried to push her face in the mud, but somehow his hand slid off her face, just enough to dislodge the gag.
“BUD! BUD, OVER HERE!” she screamed as he finally pushed her face into the mud, but before he could do anything more, he saw Pewtie on the crest line He drew up the pistol and fired. He couldn't stop shooting, the mesmerizing pleasure of it drawing him onward as the gun leaped in his hand and the gun flashes blossomed like a tulip of light.
Pewtie disappeared.
He didn't think he'd hit him.
“Come ON,” he yelled, pulling her up, but again she pulled away and this time instead of running after, he simply watched her run and then himself turned and headed to the trees.
Bud saw movement and brought the gun up to fire.
He took the slack out of the trigger as the phantasm wobbled desperately to him but saw in the next second it was Holly.
“Holly. Here.”