She slipped as she turned, and he ran to her.
“I got away. He didn't shoot me. Oh, Bud, I knew you'd come.”
He got out his knife. He cut her arms free. She threw them about him.
“Oh, Jesus. Bud, you have saved my life sure.”
He said nothing.
“You do love me. You came for me. God bless you, mister, you are a man.”
“Yes, well,” he said.
“Bud, you must love me, what you risked for me.”
“Holly—”
“Take me out of here.”
“You have to do that yourself. I want you to go into the field and just lie down flat no matter what happens. We got everybody coming in on this thing in a minute or two.
You're safe. You made it. I got you out.”
“You're done. Bud. Oh please don't do what I think you're going to.”
“I have to finish it up now. I've got to go get Lamar.”
“Bud! He'll kill you!”
“I have to—”
“Bud!”
“I have to go.”
But she pulled him toward her, as if to draw him in forever, to make him hers now that it was so close, so easy and-He hit her with his open hand, hard, left side of the head, driving her down.
No one had ever hit her before.
His nostrils flared, his eyes were wide and strange and fierce. She saw nothing in them at all that she could recognize.
“Don't you get it yet?” he almost screamed.
“It's over!
Goddamn it, I am quit of you and you are quit of me! Now get out of here. I got man's work to do.” And without looking back he set off down the crest for the trees, knowing that he had another few minutes until Lamar's eyes regained their night vision. He saw the dark band of vegetation up ahead, dense and beckoning and otherwise silent.
Wait for backup, the rules all said.
Not this time, he thought. This time we get it done.
Lamar crouched in the trees. No moon, no stars, it was so damned dark.
His eyes still weren't working right. Shooting at the cop had been stupid. Like an amateur, like something little-bitty-dick Richard would do. The gun flashes again, so close to his face had blasted his vision to hell and gone:
everywhere he looked he saw stars and pinwheels, dragons breathing fire, lions' manes flashing in the sun.
Time. He had no time.
He also had almost no ammunition now. The gun hadn't locked back, but he slipped the magazine out and felt its lips and realized they were empty. That meant he had but one cartridge, the one in the chamber.
Damn!
He thought he saw the man coming down the slope through the strobe effect, but there was no way it was a clear-enough image to shoot at.
And he couldn't even see his gun.
The only way was to get in close, real close, put the gun up to him so the muzzle touched flesh, and then blow him away with the last bullet.
But Lamar didn't like that either. It depended on Pewtie getting close and once he got in the goddamn trees there was no way of telling which way he would go. And Pewtie saw better than he did, because the rifle hadn't flashed nearly so much as the shotgun and he hadn't fired in quite a while. And Lamar couldn't just wait. The longer he was here, the surer it was he'd get caught.
No sir. Got to bring him to me and kill him fast and get on out of here before the posse shows.
An idea flashed before him.
The gun, the gun, the gun.
Yes. Secure the gun in the crotch of a tree. With a branch or something wedged into the trigger guard. Let Pewtie come. When he approaches, fire the last shot.
Pewtie will then fire back on the gun flash with every damn thing, blowing his own eyesight to hell and gone.
Then he's blind and you ain't.
In the second after he's done, you hit him hard and low and take him down. It becomes a thing of man on man, strength against strength, and Lamar knew that there was no man who could stand against him one on one. If Pewtie had any doubts, he could ask Junior Jefferson.
Lamar slipped back and in not much time found what he needed: a young sapling with a stout crotch maybe five feet up. Lamar wedged the SIG into it, slipped off his belt, and secured the gun tightly. He looked around and then up and with a snap broke off a four-foot length of branch.
Ever so delicately he wedged the tip into the trigger guard so that it just about filled the gap between trigger and guard. Force it another half an inch and it would trip the trigger and the gun would fire.
Lamar slipped down, waiting for the sounds of his quarry.
I'll still get him, he thought.
Bud had reached the trees.
No sir, don't like this a bit.
He reasoned now that if he had to shoot, it would be in response to fire, and he wanted a lot of chances, not a few.
So he restored the .45 Commander to his high hip holster and reached up and unslung his Beretta. With a thumb he snicked the hammer back.
Then, finger on the trigger, he began to snake ahead.
He's in here, goddammit, just waiting till his vision clears enough.
Got to move fast or I'm a dead man.
He slid into the brush. His night vision was clear as it could be.
Before him he saw only a thin maze of trees, ground cover, the furrow that was a stream, beyond, a fence, and beyond, way beyond that, the humps of the Wichitas. But no Lamar.
He was so slow, he was sure Lamar couldn't see him.
He eased ahead, almost soundlessly, scanning as he went, seeing nothing.
“Lamar!” he called.
“Lamar, give it up. They're on their way. You don't have to die tonight like your poor girlfriend.”
Silence.
“Lamar, they'll just send you back to the House. You'll be a big man.
You'll have it all. You'll be the king.”
Lamar didn't respond.
Was he yelling to a ghost? Had Lamar sped through the trees and was he closing in on some fine family to murder and steal a Lincoln Continental and get clean away?
No. He couldn't have moved that fast.
“Lamar!”
A gun flash blossomed before him, spangling his vision, but Lamar's best shot missed, and Bud drew the Beretta onto the fire and returned.
The gun bucked and rose in his hand, but Bud was in love with shooting it. The gun flashes illuminated the cathedral under the trees, etching each detail in the bright light if only for a millisecond.
Bud fired eight or nine times.
Now he was pretty much goddamn blind, but he heard the scrape of something moving before him and before he could stop himself, he fired again, the flashes even larger this time, like flares or star shells, that seemed to turn the night to day, catching in their shards of blaze the seething smoke.
Damn, he thought, and then Lamar hit him full in the chest.
Lamar watched him come. He had a moment of doubt in his course, for so slow and clumsy was the man, he seemed an easy target. But not at night, when you couldn't see your own gun to aim and you only had one shot. You'd have to wait until he was at contact distance and maybe he wouldn't ever come into contact distance.
You figured fine, he thought.
He watched as Pewtie hesitated, caught in doubt.
Can't make up your goddamn mind, boy.
Then Pewtie put one gun away and got another out. Now what was that all about? Some secret meaning in the guns?
Didn't matter. What mattered was that Lamar now knew Bud was carrying two, one in hand, and one high on his right hip.
Bud gently entered the trees.
Then he halted, and yelled something at Lamar. Lamar couldn't quite make it out, because he was so low into the forest floor, about six feet to the right of where his pistol was- wedged into the crotch of the tree. He controlled the sapling that reached its trigger with his left hand, but he was concentrating real hard on not making a sound, not hardly breathing, on not hardly being alive. At the same time he tried to focus his mind on Bud, to somehow reach out through the trees and take over the lawman's brain, to bring him on. So far it was working.